


the consequences of flight

by winterbones



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, s2 AU, s2 spoilers, speculations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-14
Updated: 2012-10-30
Packaged: 2017-11-16 07:39:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterbones/pseuds/winterbones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>an innocent princess makes a deal with a bloodthirsty pirate. But no one here is what they seem, and all magic comes with a price.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. how could a pirate not?

**Author's Note:**

> au once 2.04 starts, I imagine. I have no idea where this ship came from, except Sarah Bolger and Colin O'Donoghue were in The Tudors together and I never wanted history to change so much as I wanted it to for them. So here we are with Hook and Aurora, and my terrible headcanons for them both.

She was cloaked, mostly, in shadows but Hook knew almost immediately who she was. Innocence didn’t have a scent, but if it did he imagined it would smell something like her—on a very distant shore he caught a whiff of cherry blossoms in the spring, their petals curling in the water, spinning like unhinged tops and she invoked the memory of it—and the long trail of purple silk gave her away.

“Your Highness,” he greeted, smile curling over his mouth, as if he wasn’t the one bounded to the chair, blood caked along his lip, and the secrets of their world trapped beneath his retinas. One couldn’t really beckon with one’s hands roped together behind one’s back, but Hook certainly gave it his best.

She took a cautious step forward, like a doe well aware she was entering the den of a predator, but he had to admire her courage in coming this far. He had seen the way she was treated—though the glimpse was brief since princesses weren’t often allowed to traipse about the dungeons—with kid gloves lined with downy fur. Not that he could blame them, since the shaft of light revealed to him a very soft creature—small pixyish face and pearls woven in dark, waving hair. He imagined now it hadn’t take much convincing for princes to sacrifice themselves on her altar of thorns.

“Something I can help you with?” he asked, rocking back in his chair. His wrists were raw and bleeding from attempting to dislodge them, and his shoulder ached with a warning fire that suggested he was very close to dislocating it. But he didn’t like to be caged, and each day spent staring at the dank, brown walls threatened to drive him to madness.

“I want you to tell me where that fairy dust is.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, still on that, are we? I thought you were going to _at least_ be bit more interesting.” Her eyes were as a strange grey, piercing in their starkness.

“You said you were a man of honor,” she accused, and stepped closer still.

“Indeed I did, and I am, but I’m not inclined to be honorable—chained up as I am.”

“But if I freed you?” The princess sucked in a hard breath, and he wondered how long she had stood in front of a mirror, practicing what she’d say to a dangerous sort of man like himself. He certainly _felt_ dangerous, but he supposed that was just because of her corruptibility. He could almost taste the scent of her fear, her uncertainly, coupled with her determination to plow blindly forward. What sort of pirate would he be, to not take advantage of it? “I’m not asking you to bring it here. I’m just asking you to—to take me there.”

“I don’t know what you’re imaging, Your Highness,” Hook said, “but I’m a damn good pirate. I don’t bury my treasure on islands of pleasure. If I left you with the fairy dust, you wouldn’t make it back to this charming little village alive.”

Her eyes narrowed, her long, dark lashes casting half-shadows on the snowy slope of her cheeks. Her chin was angled as if in a dangerous punctuation that said _yes I am a princess and I’m not used to being told no_. “I’m stronger than I look.”

“That’s what everyone says—before they get eaten.”

“If you don’t tell Sir Lancelot where the fairy dust is he’s going to kill you. One way or another, you’re either going to tell us where it is, or you’re going to be missing a head. Wouldn’t you rather do something on your own terms? You _are_ a pirate, aren’t you?”

It grated, that she knew what to say. How he chaffed against his pen; had it bars and if his hands had been free, he would have bloodied and broken his knuckles already. Pirates never did well on land, not for very long. He didn’t like the quietness of solid ground, the stillness of it. It didn’t feel alive. The sea always felt alive.

“And you, Your Highness?” He cocked his head. “Why so quick to offer yourself for the voyage? Running away from something?”

He could see the clammy crawl of a flush on her cheeks, and could almost hear the sound of her teeth grinding against one another. It was a nerve, and a low blow. Even before he’d had the unfortunate luck of falling into the hands of Lancelot and his merry band, he’d heard how noble Prince Phillip had been left to rot in his awakened princess’s tomb. The women before him should have been a queen by now, and would have been if not for the mistakes of another.

“It doesn’t matter,” she snapped. “My reasons are my own. You’re either agreeing to the deal or not.”

The ceiling seemed to hang like a waiting axe over the curve of his neck. Hook would have preferred an open door to either walk through or kick open, but he’d clamored out a window a time or two.

“Untie me,” he invited. “And then find the keys to unlock my crew. I take it you’re smart enough to attempt this jailbreak at night? We’ll have to move quickly.”

“I already have the keys,” the princess said, pushing at her white, wispy cloak. They rattled metallically.

“Oh, princess,” Hook said, straining forward. “I think we’re going to get along swimmingly.”

 

 

 

The princess pinned a little note to the outside of his door, and Hook peered just close enough to see the first elegantly scrawled sentence _Dear Mulan_ before he yanked it loose and tore it into fine, undecipherable stripes of parchment.

The princess paused, hand posed in mid-air to unlock the first door. “Why?” she demanded.

“Was that an explanation on how you went willingly?” Her silence was answer enough and Hook laughed. “Don’t bother. A pirate has a reputation to maintain.”

 

 

 

 

She stood shivering on the quarterdeck, eyes tracing the dark outline of the village she was leaving behind. Hook’s men worked quietly and effectively to ready the _Jolly Roger_. He stood with his hands on the helm, fingers tight around the notches. It had been a while, and it was a relief to feel the old girl hum beneath his boots. He gave the wheel a sturdy pat before during to the princess, arms wrapped tightly around her.

“Having second thoughts?” he said. “I could have a man row you back.”

The moon had disappeared behind a cover of dark clouds and in the darkness he couldn’t see her countenance but he had the distinct impression he was being glared at. “No,” she said.

“Suit yourself.” Hook shrugged and turned back. He felt the princess’s gaze fastened to his back and it made the hairs on his neck prickle. “Never did catch your name, Your Highness.”

“Aurora.”

“ _Aurora_.” He tested it, tasted it, drew out the syllables. It was sickly sweet and heavy on his tongue. “They used to call you The Sleeping Beauty—back when you were sleeping, of course. I think I prefer that.”

She didn’t answer for a moment and then, “Shouldn’t you be trying to get out to open water a little faster? Lancelot does have guards.”

“Oh trust me, Your Highness,” Hook said. “We won’t need to worry about that.” He looked up, watching as a shadowy figure scaled the tall main mast of the ship. A little blip of light burst at the very top, from the crow’s nest. Hook banged one boot on the deck and felt the ship come to life. “Let me show you why it’s so hard to catch Captain Hook.”

And the _Jolly Roger_ flew.

 

 

 

 

Mr. Smee brought the princess bread and wine sometime later, while she holed up in his cabin, still a little shaken from the shock of the _Jolly Roger_ not treading open water but open air. Mr. Smee was surprisingly soft for a pirate, and had a weakness for strays. Hook supposed in a way that the princess counted as one. She was certainly out of her element.

“There you are, miss,” Mr. Smee said, laying the copper tray on the desk. “A little wine will do your nerves good. We all took a fright the first time up. Nothing to worry about, miss.”

“Your Highness, Mr. Smee,” Hook corrected absently, drawing his first mate’s attention. He had a cigar clamped between his teeth, a compass laid out in his good hand, a series of charts lining his desk. “She’s a princess. Hand me that pencil.”

His first mate did out of automatic habit, but his eyes were locked on the princess in abject horror. Mr. Smee did tend to a stickler for the proper side of things. “I’m so sorry, miss—I mean, Your Highness.”

“It’s alright,” the princess said softly. “I’m not much of a princess anymore. My kingdom’s in ruins.”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter,” Mr. Smee said. “Surely, it doesn’t. Being a _princess_ is—is a way of life. Did you know I had the pleasure of meeting Queen Snow White?”

“Did you?” the princess’s voice was oddly strangled.

“Indeed, Your Highness, I did. Back when she was running from the evil queen, the one that killed her father and tried to kill her? All wild, she was, covered in furs and dirt but there was no doubt in my mind that she had to be some sort of runaway royalty, why just the way she carried herself—”

Hook turned, laying one arm over the back of his chair. The princess’s head was downcast, dark hair falling over her face like a curtain, obscuring whatever byplay was occurring there. But he could see her hands twisting and knotting in her lap, part-rage and part-grief.

“Mr. Smee, that’s enough,” Hook said lightly, turning back to his cartography. “Her Highness is quite tired. It’s been a day for her—making deals with pirates, runaway from home, finding a pirate ship that can fly—I imagine she just wants to sleep now.”

“Oh, of course, of course. You’re right, as always, Cap’n.”

Mr. Smee made a hasty departure and Hook went back to his charts. Unfortunately, he did tend to be a man of his word and a deal struck was a bargain made. He owed the princess her fairy dust, though he didn’t think it would do her any sort of good. With the fairies gone the dust had been left to its own devices, and it had become rabid, magic with teeth—though Hook was under the impression magic _always_ had teeth, and he thought the princess might understand that, at least; they’d both been the recipients of and witnesses to the cruelty of magic. He could already see the way her face will twist in muted horror, her dreams crashing around her feet like the splinters of a spindle wheel, and he almost felt sorry for her.

Almost.

“You can sleep in here.” When he glanced at her over his shoulder, divider compass dangling from two fingers, he almost laughed at the shock etched across her face. “Thought I was going to make you bed down with the crew?”

Her eyes hooded, and she watched him warily. “I wouldn’t have put it passed you.”

Hook stood, stretching his blunted arm over his head, before walking toward her. His footfalls were heavy but muffled on his thick rug, and the princess’s shoulders stiffened in defense against him, but Hook was unrelenting, bending in close, gripping the arm of her chair with his good hand.

“They _are_ pirates, Your Highness, and you’re a beautiful thing—pirates don’t get beautiful things very often; why do you think we hoard it, hide it, bury it? We’re selfish as consequence of starvation. My men are loyal to me, but they’re still _men_ and hard ones at that. Putting you anywhere near them would be like tossing a lamb into a den of ravenous lions and asking them to fast. Whatever you may think of me, I wouldn’t do that. You stay in my cabin at night, and you stay _out_ of the haul and you don’t go exploring the ship without me or Mr. Smee. Smee’s a good sort, but only trust the rest as far as you can throw them.” Pirate life wasn’t easy, or safe, and he wouldn’t have her thinking anything else. He commanded loyalty of the crew, but only inasmuch as he commanded his own strength. When that strength gave out—he’d seen what happened.

_He’d seen what happened._

“And you?” The princess’s voice penetrated his mind, foggy with memory. She was like a cool, babbling stream. “I can trust you?”

“I never claimed to be any sort of good man.” He backed away, turning toward his desk. “You can take my bed.”

“Thank you—”

“But you have to share it.” He was grinning, imagining that scandalized look on her face. He called over to her, “I’m a gentleman, but not that much of a gentleman.”

 

 

 

 

He still fell asleep with the heels of his boots propped on his desk, a discarded map crunched beneath him. The princess had left him to his work some time ago, curling up into a little lump of coverlets on his bed. Hook had charted until the lines had blurred and his eyes had watered. He’d had every intention of scooting the princess over and collapsing into an exhausted heap beside her, but he’d been asleep before he’d even managed to bolster the energy to climb out of his chair.

_Blood. That’s what he dreamed of, blood pooling in a thick, syrupy puddle on his ship’s deck. Only it hadn’t been his ship, not then, and he could feel the bite of a sword into the small of his back, his own blood straining for release from his skin. Her pale, little hand reached out for him still, caught forever in this macabre tableau that would haunt him for the rest of his days. The dark laugh somewhere above his head, and her blood—blood seeping into the cracks in the wood, imbuing the ship, illuminated it with the magic that escaped her. Her mouth was open in mute appeal and her words were a noose around his neck—I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry._

_“See, boy, see?” A serpentine voice whispered, coiling against his ear. A boot dug into his shoulder blades. “See, I did this for us. I did this for us.”_

_The rage mutated him, transformed him, like that old story about a cursed prince. Hands planted on the deck, he shoved with his might, the sword sliding through the soft tissue of his side. He was screaming, but not in pain—in rage. This was how it happened, every single time, the man born in blood and hate and anger, poisoning his goodness, his innocence, what had first brought him to this land._

_But it would be the last, it would be the last time._

He chair slapped unceremoniously on the ground as he woke up with a jolt. Cursing, he rubbed his good hand down his face. The set of the moon in the black sky told him it was the witching hour. _Tick tock_ , but he’d stopped being afraid of crocodiles some time ago. There were far worst things out there than hungry beasts.

Hook was one of them.

Pivoting to his feet, he blew out the last little flame from the candle and followed the familiar path to his bunk, recognizable to him even in the pitch darkness. But he’d forgotten about the princess until his hand found the lump of her sleeping form. He cursed again, some vague part of him sounding like Smee reminding him of delicate princess ears.

“Bullocks to that,” he muttered, and leveled one knee on the bunk, giving her an ungraceful shove. “Scoot over.”

His only answer was a grumble of protest, and then a shifting of sheets. Hook pressed himself face first into his pillow, and inhaling the succulent scent of her—pomegranate, he thought, he’d sampled the fruit once in a desert kingdom; he’d come to steal a magic lamp but found it long gone—and it was an odd sensation. The dream still haunted him, needles pressing just below his skin, a wet poison burning its way through his veins while she smelled fresh, clean, untouched.

“A heavy sleeper, you are,” he murmured, because the princess hadn’t been roused by all the shifting and shoving. He laughed. “Why am I not surprised?”

 

 

 

Hook wasn’t all that surprised to wake up with his arms full of princess, because he did have the vague recollection of sometime during the night of her grumbling that he was crushing her—he had wedged her between the wall and himself; he was used to taking up the whole cot—and his solution had been to drag her half across him. If she’d protested, he’d been too exhausted to listen, and that was how he woke to find her, her head jammed under his chin, one slim leg tucked between his, and one slender arm thrown across his chest.

It wasn’t necessarily uncomfortable, though he couldn’t name the sensation pleasant either—because he was a man, and there was a soft, yielding body on top of him and there nothing to do but let nature take its course. Her nose rubbed against the v of exposed skin at the neck of his shirt, one hand fisted at his side.

She rolled, and her knee jammed up into a dangerous red zone that made Hook a bit more leery of the sleeping princess. She made a sleepy sound at the very back of her throat, her nose rubbing against his skin, and electricity ignited his nerve-endings when he felt her lips brush against his skin. His body went haywire and he thought it rather understandable, considering, because it had been a while, and this little, elfish thing was very beautiful and what else was a body supposed to do but _react_?

But then she said, “ _Phillip_ ,” on a long, yearning sigh and his excitement cooled measurably. He rolled his eyes heavenward, an invocation of mercy on his lips and at long last her head lifted. Drowsy eyes blinked at him, dark hair plastered to the side of her face, as she attempted to take in the scene before her.

Hook knew when it clicked because her charming morning flush drained from her face and she pitched sideways, back thumping against the wall as she scrambled away. “Oh _gods_ ,” he thought he heard, but couldn’t be sure because the princess was burying herself under the thick coverlet, as if that could somehow erase him from her memory.

“Relax, Highness,” Hook muttered, and swung his legs over the side of the cot. He grimaced at the riot of protest his crotch gave, far too hard to move unless it was _in_ something. _No, no—down boy, best not to think of that. A gentleman, remember?_ “Natural male reaction.”

She didn’t answer him, curled as she was under his blankets. It sent a small trickle of annoyance through Hook—a pirate, yes, but he’d assured her he’d be the gentleman a princess expected and, well, it was like she was _ashamed_ of being in bed with _him_ , and he’d always been particularly proud of his skills in that regard.

“Don’t imagine your prince ever got around to showing you how a proper man woke up in the morning?” he said, feeling small and peevish.

The princess threw the covers back and clamored out of bed. “ _Don’t_ touch me. You don’t know anything about me—or Phillip.” He had a small changing area, a water basin and a copper tube inside, and she disappeared behind the standing curtain. It was sheer enough for him to make out her silhouette in a brown outline.

“I know that if you’re still shocked about a man’s reaction to you then there was something very remiss in your prince,” he snapped, belligerent for no real reason. No, that wasn’t true. Frustrated lust was as good a reason as any, and his was throbbing in his breeches.

Water sloshed in the metal basin, and he watched her shadow bend. He could hear her breath, hard and heavy, and there seemed to be waves of anger radiating from her lithe body.

When she turned the curtain, looking freshened but still agitated, Hook was seated at his desk, his cock mostly under control.

“Captain Hook,” she said, in the primmest voice he had ever heard of her. He wanted to wince, an automatic reaction to being chastised. “This is purely a business arrangement. We will _not_ get involved with each other’s personal lives—that means there will be no more questions or comments about my husband.”

“Husband, is it?” Hook sneered, laying a fisted hand on the desk. “The way I hear it, you weren’t married to him yet.”

“You heard wrong and, as I said, we will no longer be discussing it. We made a deal.”

He stood, chair scrapping against the wood. “We did, indeed, but I’m a pirate, remember? What if I decide to rescind that agreement?” Hook circled her, pleased that she made sure to keep him in her wary eyesight. He leapt, suddenly, before she could gauge his move and caught her elbow, drawing her protesting frame against his. “Suppose I decide to dump you in the middle of the sea, or on some tiny little island where no one will ever find you? What then? What will you do—”

A knife point pressed into the soft underside of his chin. The princess’s face was fierce and dark as she eased away from him. “ _Don’t_ touch me.”

“I’m impressed you managed to sneak that on your person without my noticing. I’m very good at noticing things.” He grabbed her wrist and twisted. The princess was a scrapper of sorts, but still very far from her element. Her little knife clattered quietly to the floor as he spun her, crossing her arms tightly over her chest, bowing over her.

“If you’re going to go about brandishing knives or other sharp objects at people, best do it with intent,” he leaned in close, to wear her hair coiled in a tiny ringlet at her ear. “Because you’d best believe that if I ever come at you with a sword, I’m going to mean to end you.”

The princess was stiff against him, and unwilling, and Hook released her with a huff, largely disgusted with himself. He didn’t go around manhandling women, he thought, clomping back to his desk. It was bad form all around.

“Trust me,” the princess hissed quietly at him, “the next time I will.”


	2. hell to ships, hell to men

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> officially AU now, but those promo pics of 2.05 have given me so much hope. I just want faces on faces, is that so much to ask?

Aurora’s stomach roiled, threatening to heave out the bland collection of breakfast in her stomach. She hadn’t thought to worry about seasickness, not when the ship was in _air_ but it rocked all the same, pitched whenever it hit a rough patch of wind and in turn made her legs feel like warm butter, unstable and unreliable. The first few days, she gripped the railing of the quarterdeck and ordered herself not to vomit. She wouldn’t give Captain Hook the satisfaction of knowing that she suffered.

Not that she had seen a lot of the captain, who kept mostly to himself—either at his desk in his cabin or at the helm. He had a helmsman, or so Mr. Smee had informed her, but the captain liked the feel of the wheel between his fingers.

There were moments when she sorely regretted this momentary lapse in judgment, but she just hadn’t been able to stay. Hadn’t been able to stay in that village a moment longer, memories of Philip clinging its edges, like the gold-dust her fairy godmothers had sprinkled into her hair at her christening. She hadn’t been able to stay in a village that housed Philip’s murderers—it didn’t matter, what Lancelot said, or that it was _Queen Snow White_ and her daughter returned at long last; if they had never come Philip would be alive.

Fairy dust, Queen Snow White had said, could be used to bridge the two worlds, except the mines had gone dry in the wake of the dwarves and fairies’ disappearances. That was why Sir Lancelot had been so desperate to reel in Captain Hook. What little bit of fairy dust remained in the world, it was said the captain housed it, hoarded it, had buried it away. Threats had failed coaxed him to reveal its location, but Aurora thought she might have some small understanding of him. She had sensed that there was an odd line of honor in him, some sort of code of conduct he adhered to. She had thought he’d take her deal, and he had.

He would lead her to the fairy dust and she’d find some way to bring it back to the village and she’d send Queen Snow White and her daughter on their way. And maybe, _maybe then_ , she’d be able to mourn Philip. She couldn’t now, he was like an arrowhead lodged between her ribs, and each movement was a pain. Such dreams they had shared, shattered in an instant, ripped daisy heads lying so inoffensively.

“Are you sure you’re alright, Miss?” Mr. Smee said. She hated being cooped up in the captain’s quarters, hated it even more when the captain himself was in residence, scribbling away on his maps, and most days Mr. Smee took her on turns about the deck. The sea breeze felt bitter and sharp on her cheeks, but had an ability to turn her twisting thoughts lucid.

“Just fine,” she lied, because at that moment the ship dipped along a wind current, her stomach curling into a tight knot as a result. Her grip on Mr. Smee’s arm tightened so much that he yelped. “I’m—I’m just fine.”

“You’re a bit green about the gills, if you don’t mind me saying.”

She _did_ mind, thank you very much, if only because the image of _green_ made her stomach churn. And she wasn’t a child, to be cuddled. She had made a deal with a pirate captain, and before that she had willingly gone to prickle her finger on that spindle wheel. Maleficent had lost interest in Aurora some time ago, but curses took minds of their own—that was the way of magic—and it ravaged her land. She had seen too much suffering, for eighteen long years watching all that she loved wither and die. She’d gone to her mausoleum of brambles, and willingly.

Philip shouldn’t have come after her, he should have left her to rot.

“Miss!” Mr. Smee cried in alarm and Aurora felt his hands scramble down her arms as her knees crashed. “Oh dear, oh dear. _Captain_! _Captain_!”

_Don’t. I don’t want his help_ , Aurora tried to say, but it came out mumbled in a pained moaned. She slumped forward and braced herself with one hand on the deck. Her vision was tunneled to a pinpoint of black, and she felt overly hot, felt sweat collecting at the backs of her knees and elbows, at the nape of her neck.

“Gods, what’s she gotten into this time?” someone said above her head. Aurora wanted to sleep, that was all the mattered, the glorious lethargy of oblivion. She would have crashed face first into the deck if there hadn’t been a hand pressed under her armpit, insistent. The voice spoke again, “Well, what the bloody hell is wrong with her?”

_Nothing_ , Aurora thought but in the inky recesses of her pain she could admit, _everything_. Philip was dead, Mulan had loved him, and for nearly thirty years she hadn’t slept—not a wink, not a single dream. And the dreams still would not come, the last remnants of her curse. She couldn’t even find reprieve in sleep, couldn’t dream of Philip, dream of the life they should have lead.

Her body gave into its fatigue, its exhaustion, but even then she knew there would be no kindness for her to find. No dreams. And no Philip. She could have wept, if the tears had not been leeched from her.

 

 

 

 

“You’re more trouble than you’re worth,” someone said, and their cool hand swept along her brow. She moaned and turned to it, seeking the sweet relief for her feverish body. “Hold still, let me get you a rag.”

Something cold and wet slapped down on her forehead. Aurora would have yelped if she could have, but she was only half-existing now, floating in mire, sticky and thick.

Her eyes fluttered and the world was a blur of colors. “I’m so tired.”

Hook’s face swam watery into her vision. “You’re sick, is what you are. Not everyone takes sea-legs easily, but you’d think a smart princess like you would have thought to mention just how rough a time you were having of it.”

“No, I—” She swallowed convulsively, unable to stop her words. She didn’t _want_ to tell him, anything at all, but the words poured out of her, like mana. “I didn’t sleep, not those—all those years, I didn’t sleep. I was awake, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t scream, I wanted to but I couldn’t I just—I was just there.”

Hook stilled, she could feel his quietness where his hand rested at her hip. She thought he might have mumbled something. It might have been “Aurora” but she was being enticed back to oblivion.

“I don’t dream,” she murmured. “I haven’t dreamt, not since—the curse took that from me. I don’t dream.”

And still, she didn’t.

 

 

 

 

Against her ear she thought someone breathed. “You told me a secret, so now I’ll tell you one of mine. I don’t like owing a debt—my name wasn’t always Hook, you know. Once it was Killian Jones, and then a fairy found me and whisked me away.”

He was whispering to her, mouth pressed against her ear, but it felt as loud as a thunderstorm and she moaned in protest at the pain it rallied inside her.

“But then Killian Jones died. No maybe that’s the wrong thing to say, maybe I killed him. I was eager enough for what was offered. Fairy-touched and cursed, I suppose they’re one in the same, aren’t they?”

Her fever broke some time after, and she awoke with wet cheeks and Mr. Smee’s puttering around her. But Hook never spoke about it again, and after a while she convinced herself that she had just imagined it in some sort of fever dream.

 

 

 

 

“The Pale, have you heard of it?” he asked her. Aurora stood braced on the quarterdeck, watching as the clouds sailed above their heads.

“Only in stories,” Aurora admitted. “The edge of the world, where all the leftover magic goes.”

“What better place to bury fairy dust you don’t want found?” Hook asked. “We can’t get there through the air, so we’ll be riding the sea soon. Nasty place, the Pale. The world is all wrong there, mutated and corrupted. It’s because of the magic, all used up and discarded. Only the terminally insane go there.”

“But you’ve been there.”

“I’m mad as a hatter, Your Highness.”

Aurora didn’t think so. She thought there was a strange, coolly methodical nature to him, a pragmatism that she hadn’t expected in a pirate, and a bitterness she had. He ruled his ship with an iron fist, careful to weed out any sign of dissention and deal with it quickly and ruthlessly. She understood that, she supposed, because if the crew decided to overthrow him there was little Hook would be able to do to stop it, and she _was_ thankful for it because she knew that once Hook was gone her protection and relative safety went with him.

But she had been raised with an understanding of catching more flies with honey than vinegar. She was to be the soothing balm, Phillip was to be the sword. She had been content and happy in her role too. She preferred for people to love her, rather than fear her. She’d been the one to decline sword lessons, finding she had no taste for violence, and she only liked archery recreationally—she hated hunting, and hated blood; Phillip had taken her once and had struck down a deer and she had embarrassingly wept over the poor dead thing—she’d like reading, and sewing, even politics. She could fight now, but only because Mulan had insisted and had painstakingly drilled her until it had stuck; Aurora recognized it was not her nature. Hook had been right, she wouldn’t have been able to kill him, not even with her knife pressed to his throat.

“Have you thought about what you’ll do, once you get the dust?” Hook glanced at her, a lethal grin on his face. “Our bargain only included the going, not the returning.”

No, she hadn’t, and with the Pale being their ultimate destination she couldn’t help but worry. She _wasn’t_ a warrior—Mulan or Emma or even Queen Snow White—who could find their way back, fight whatever dangers they stumbled into along the way. She was still wearing her gown, threadbare now and worse for wear, and all she had was a little knife that Hook had already proven did no real good.

“I’ll manage,” she said, “I always do.” And that was true. Aurora had a habit of coming out of things unscathed. The spell meant to doom her had been Philip’s death toll instead.

Hook’s eyes were dark, flinty, the smile fading. She didn’t like that look in his eyes, too deep and too knowing. She didn’t want to feel a sort of kinship with him, a sort of camaraderie, but she did. Neither of them truly fit, a gentleman pirate and a princess with no happy ever after in her skies.

“Yes, I imagine you will,” Hook murmured and left it at that. She was apprehensive about that strange thread of _something_ between them, and the heaviness of it. It was good they were both ignoring it, but it was still there, and she could feel it winding around her neck.

There were nights when she couldn’t sleep. It happened more often than she cared to admit, unable to track down that illusive gift of sleep. Even if she didn’t dream, even if she woke up barely rested, it was better than hours and hours of staring into the darkness, only her thoughts for company. She had the dangerous habit, now, of listening to _him_ sleep, only an inch away. He thrashed sometimes, in the throes of a nightmare, mumbled things, and sometimes he reached for her—not her, the Princess Aurora, but just a soft body to grip.

She never mentioned that to him, and if she had any sort of self-preservation skills she would continue to keep quiet about it.

 

 

 

She woke to the odd aria of an eerie song. The _Jolly Roger_ had taken to the sea, and Aurora found the rock of waves more comforting than the sky.

A strange blue light flashed over her closed lids, and she cracked her eyes open. The cabin was illuminated with a bizarre glow, rotating lights flashing moving over the desk, the carpet, the bed. She rolled sideways, alarmed, and found Hook surprisingly gone. Trepidation pinched at her spine.

Swinging herself out of the covers and to the ground, she scrambled to the door. It exploded open and Hook stomped in, shoving wads of cotton into his ears.

“ _Hell_ ,” he snarled, and grabbed for the sword and scabbard resting on his desk. “And double hell, all the hells combined. They weren’t supposed to be here this time of year.”

“What is it?” Aurora demanded, coming up to his left and grappling for his elbow. He jerked around, eyes wide. It was the most alarmed she had ever seen him, so normally composed and self-assured. Unease rocked through her, congealed at the bottom of her stomach in a tight ball of lead. “Hook, what is it?”

“ _Sirens_ ,” he snarled. “They’ve gone against their normal migration.”

“Sirens?”

“Worse than sharks, they are,” he snapped. His voice was too loud, his hearing and sense of sound dampened by the almost comical protuberance of multicolored fabric sticking out of his ears. “And as a rule, they fucking _hate_ pirates of any and all forms. I’ve already lost two men, went right over the side and into their hungry arms.”

Aurora rocked back, fingers still gripping his arm. She’d heard of sirens, of course, but had never imagined to see them. They were the horror story of the seas, luring men to die on the rocks with their mournful song.

“They won’t just drown us, you know,” Hook murmured and Aurora realized that he was truly and utterly afraid. Terrified. “That’ll be the last bloody thing they do. First—first, they’re make us remember, all those deep dark secrets, they’re drag it out of us, feast on it. Only then will they have the mercy to kill us.”

She could hear it, the soft chant, a sorrowful ballad that made the air oppressive, asphyxiating almost. Aurora didn’t understand how this could be considered beautiful. It only knifed cold, biting fear into her heart, because she could hear the hate and rage buried beneath the hymn. Was it because she was a woman? Sirens were said to be only alluring to men, that it was their flesh they hungered for, starved for; did this psalm touch some deficiency in them?

Hook blinked suddenly, as if finally comprehending where he was, who he was with. His fingers bit into her arm. “My sword, take it,” he said. “It won’t do me any good, not for much longer. The song gets in, sooner or later.”

“What do we do?” Aurora demanded.

“Got to keep the helm straight, until we sail out of their territory. Their song has a small radius—the one good thing.” She jolted when his hand came up, laid on the curve of her cheek. It was so oddly tender that a pincher of panic knotted at her sides. His thumb swept over her cheekbone. “Don’t try to do anything heroic. I know it’s in your nature, but do try to be sensible for a little bit.”

He didn’t let her go, and Aurora felt no real need to escape his hold. She knew, in the back of her mind, that she shouldn’t. That she should pull away, yank away, take his sword, but her feet remained immobile despite the ringing of her common sense. She _didn’t_ want to go anywhere, he was safe and warm, and she wanted to put her hand on his skin, wanted to feel the pound of his heart under her fingertips, to know the realness of him, the solidness.

The song shifted, reached a near soundless screech. Aurora clamped her hands over ears, twisting away and racing to the door. She threw it open and breathed in a chill that froze her lungs. The sea and the sky were dark, but not in a natural way. It was as if someone had thrown a woolen blanket over them, trapping them inside.

Behind her, she heard a loud _thud_. Hook was one his knees, fisting his good hand on the carpet. His hooked hand dug roughly into the wooden paneling just beyond, but he couldn’t seem to muster the strength to lift himself.

“Hook!” Aurora cried, rushing to him. She crouched beside him, touching the sides of his face. When he lifted his visage toward her his eyes were unseeing, staring at something beyond her, past her.

“Sword,” he managed, lips moving like he was speaking around something thick and heavy. “Take it.”

She did, clammy fingers curling around the hilt and yanking it free of its sheath. It was heavier than she expected, and possessed a wicked curve. Hook’s head bowed to the floor in a sort of prayer.

“Oh gods,” he said, voice low and pained. “Oh gods, I’m so sorry.”

Aurora knew he wasn’t talking to her, but she couldn’t stand to hear such agony and quickly clamored to her feet, bursting out of the cabin and into the dead, still night. She slammed the door shut behind her, wedging a chair beneath the knob in case Hook moved to answer the siren’s call and dive into the dark, murky depths of the sea. The quarterdeck was just above her, and she heaved herself up the ladder two steps at a time.

A woman hung over the side, dark hair dripping with silvery water, her skin tinged blue and slimy in texture. When she lifted her head to croon, ropy hair slithering over her shoulders in a wet slop, her eyes were a blind, unblinking grey. Sensing rather than seeing Aurora, she twisted her head, the skin on her neck pinching and puckering, and met Aurora’s eyes. She smiled, revealing rows of pointed, white teeth.

The sword was unwieldy in her hands, and far too big, but Aurora heaved it over her head and swung it at the siren. The sword slid through the willowy creature’s middle as it cut through water, and the wound quickly stitched itself back together like it had never been. The siren gave a crowing laugh, a clawed hand stretched out for Aurora.

Scrambling away, Aurora spun toward the helm and jammed her sword through one of the openings, locking the wheel in place. The sea was open and expansive, but in the dark cast of night she couldn’t be sure if they were being lured to rocks. Hook had said that they needed to go straight, so she would make sure they went straight.

The siren couldn’t stray far from the sea, her lifeblood, and made no move to follow her, only watched her with mocking, sightless eyes. Aurora leaned heavily on wheel, elbows wedged between the notches in a shaky claim to balance. Below, Hook’s crew had either fled into the haul of the ship, or had lashed themselves to the main mast. She could see Mr. Smee straining against his binds, arms outstretched toward the dark, waiting ocean.

There was nothing she could do for them, so long as the ship was filled with the enchanting call of the sirens. All she could do was make sure the ship continued straight, out of the sirens’ reach.

 

 

 

 

Time lost meaning, drowned out by the sound of singing and the dampening of the sunlight, but Aurora knew it was hours before the heavy cloak over them was eased away, light to filtering through in a small stream. The crew shook off the thrall slower than that, but as their hands lowered and the sirens’ song ceased Aurora unbounded them. They walked the deck in a daze, unaware of their surroundings, still living through whatever memories the sirens had called up to haunt them.

Aurora left them, pulling the chair away from the captain’s quarters and stepping inside. She hadn’t known what she expected to find, upon entering, but her heart twisted in her chest at the sight of Captain Hook propped up against his cot, knees drawn and hands resting across them. He’d taken off his hook, and it lay some feet away as if heaved.

“Captain?” There wasn’t hesitation in her approach now, the way there had been in their first shadowy meeting. She went to him as if driven by instinct, shaken by the way his chin dropped to his chest. “Captain Hook?” She crouched down beside him, laying one hand over his stumped one.

He raised his head at the sound of her voice, and his gaze was still unseeing, watching a scene play out before him. Grief had etched deep rivets into his face, and it weighed his mouth downward. She had never seen such anguish in another person, not even in Phillip those moments before his death, saying goodbye to her and Mulan. Her hand smoothed back the ragged mane of his hair, and she knew something must be terribly wrong when he didn’t even bristle from it—Hook was not one to be cuddled, soothed or anything resembling it but he remained stationary at her touch.

“Captain Hook?” she tried again, trying to coax him back into his body because she knew he had to be having an out of body experience. She recognized it, knew that sensation—of hanging above yourself—and knew crashing back down was the most painful part.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, voice watery, grave. He tilted his head upward and she could see him swallowing rapidly. “ _Gods_ , I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” she said, even though she knew it couldn’t possibly be.

He slumped forward, the fulsome weight of him a shock that almost sent her sprawling backwards. But she held herself straight, on her knees, with his head pressed into the collar of her neck.

“So sorry,” he muttered, over and over again, into her skin, like a prayer, like he sought absolution from her flesh. “Tinkerbell, I’m so sorry.”

 

 

 

 

Mr. Smee knocked on the door, but Aurora only opened the door a crack, not allowing him to peer inside his captain’s cabin. Hook had come to some time ago, but hadn’t spoken to her, had only moved around her as if she were a non-entity. He hadn’t reached for his hook, instead digging out a strangely realistic prosthetic arm from a drawer in his desk. He sat now with one hand pressed to the jut of his chin, contemplating the mysteries of the glass of golden brandy he had poured for himself.

“The captain’s not well,” Aurora murmured quietly to Mr. Smee.

A strange spark of understanding entered his eyes and he nodded. “Yes, I suppose he wouldn’t be. I’ve been looking after him for quite some time, you know, and he still hasn’t ever talked about it—with anyone.”

“Talked about what?”

Quietly, Mr. Smee said, “How he lost his hand.”

“A crocodile,” Aurora said, remembering the stories.

Mr. Smee only shook his head. “Not this time. Not this captain.” He passed her a copper tray. “He won’t want to eat, but all that brandy won’t be good for him an empty stomach. You’ll make sure he gets it won’t you, miss?”

“Yes.” How odd it was, to slip into this role, a princess as a caretaker to a bloodthirsty captain. But she accepted the tray without hesitation, without any protest. Behind her, the captain looked so lost, so dejected. She couldn’t leave him alone.

The cabin was unnervingly quiet when she turned, approaching and laying the tray in front of him. She scooted the extra chair closer to the desk, the scrap of wood perversely loud. Aurora winced, almost afraid it would shatter whatever was left of the captain sitting in the chair.

“You need to eat,” she said quietly, breaking off a chuck of yeasty bread. It was still warm and singed her fingers, but she presented it to him like an offering—maybe it was. “Hook?”

“You don’t dream,” Hook said without looking at her.

Aurora jerked, as if struck, but he didn’t seem to notice. She swallowed. “No. I don’t. I haven’t since—since the spell.”

“I dream. Every damn night, wish I didn’t.” He rubbed his jaw, joints popping. “Do you remember when I told you that I wasn’t always Hook?”

She had half-convinced herself it was a dream. “Killian Jones,” she recalled.

“Yes, but I wasn’t Killian Jones for very long. Ten years? Maybe eleven. She found me. Tinkerbell, told me about a land where I never had to grow, had to be an adult. Neverland. Sounded wonderful, so I went. And never looked back. Killian Jones wasn’t much of a name—for the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up so Tinkerbell gave me a new. Peter Pan.”

“I thought—” Aurora swallowed. “I thought Hook had killed Peter Pan.”

“Hook _did_ , in the ways that matter I suppose.” He turned to her abruptly, and she shied away when he leaned in too close, his breath laced with brandy. “It’s a cycle, Aurora. Neverland got used to having a Peter Pan and a Hook, since the first set of them, but fairy dust can only hold off aging so long, you see. Sooner or later Peter Pan has to grow up and that’s how it ends—he becomes too much of a man to just play around with Captain Hook. It becomes real and Hook _dies_ and Peter Pan dies then too. You can’t be a boy when you’ve killed a man, and so Peter Pan takes Hook’s place and Tinkerbell abandons him for another eager, bright-eyed boy. Fairies can’t stand tainted things, it’s their nature. I found out about it, before my time was up and I was—I was so mad, furious. I had a row with Tinker; she told me everything but that she _loved_ me too but I knew even then, her love had a timestamp. How could she do that, to me? I didn’t mean anything to her, in the end I was just a body to sacrifice for her own pleasure.”

He stopped, and Aurora wondered if that was all he was going to say. She nearly wanted to flee the room. _Business arrangement_ , she had told him over two weeks ago, and she didn’t want to know this man, and his dark, intimate secrets, didn’t want a peephole into the inner workings of this pirate. But it hurt to imagine it, a boy spirited away to adventure and freedom, only to be betrayed by it all.

“I went to Hook. I was going to tell him that it was over—that I was done, going home, growing up and being a normal sort of man. Tinkerbell came after me, to stop me or save me or herself I don’t know but—she’d never been on the _Jolly Roger_ before. Hook knew she’d come after me, knew she’d never let go of her Peter Pan. She _did_ love me, you see, but she was wild and could only love in a wild way. Hook slit her throat, right before my eyes, and I—I don’t even remember it anymore, what happened after—except the pain from where Hook caught my hand off and the satisfaction I felt when I fed him to that crocodile. The damage was done though—didn’t you ever wonder why the ship could fly? Fairy dust can only do so much, and can only last so long but fairy _blood_ —ah fairy blood can make a ship fly. She’s still here—my Tinkerbell, her blood warped the wood and now the ship flies like she used to.”

A sound, a strangled sob, escaped her, not for herself or even for the horror of the story, the gore of it, but for the look in his eyes as he remembered, as guilt and grief weighed him down. Something very much like her heart turned over in her chest and she reached for him. Her sob turned into a gasp trapped on her tongue as he gripped her wrist with his good hand, tight enough to bruise, and yanked her forward, until she sat the very edge of her chair, his mouth an inch from hers, his breath hot and dangerous.

“So you see that’s the kind of man I am—fairy killer and man killer and boy killer, too. And do you want to know something else, Your Highness?”

“No,” Aurora whispered, her self-preservation suddenly roaring to life, screaming at her to escape, to run as far as she could and as fast as she could. He was more deadly to her than any sleeping spell. “ _Stop_.”

“I want you,” he whispered, and his eyes dipped down, to her lips. “And not in that immaculate, revering way I imagine your prince did—I want to touch you, all over, I want to do all those things your prince never dreamed of doing to you. I want you to let me, I want you to _like_ it. Because I’m not him. I’m not a prince.”

“ _Stop_ ,” she hissed, and shoved against him. “You’re _not_ Phillip.”

“No. I’m a man, and I’m a man who wants you so badly it feels like my gums are bleeding with it.” His eyes were a torrent of emotions, a dark, wailing storm that riled against the walls of her defenses. “Tell me to leave.”

But she was already moving forward, mouth swooping down onto his. Hook was waiting for her and yanked her free of her chair and into his lap. He wasn’t Phillip, and she didn’t want to think about Phillip because in that moment, for the first time in her memory, she didn’t _want_ Phillip. She only wanted Hook and his hands, and there would be time enough for guilt about that later.


	3. gravity pulls you down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wanted to get this out before 2.04 aired so the typos might be a bit more than usual. Bear with me. Also a truly wonderful and noble soul has offered to beta, so hopefully the typos in the earlier chapters will magically disappear and the next chapters will be wonderfully free of them.

Gentleness, that was what she needed, but Hook’s mind was too laden with brandy and her luscious scent to truly listen to his common sense. In his state he couldn’t give her what she needed, but he could give her what she wanted. She was small and soft and yielding in his lap, her fingers blunt and biting in his scalp, and she tasted like his salvation and his damnation all at once and if this was his funeral march then someone hand him the shovel—he’d willingly dig the grave.

Hook stood and his chair clattered noisily to the floor. He half-carried her across the room, Aurora working at the laces of his shirt, yanking them roughly, as her mouth nibbling at his. She even kissed like something far too innocent for him, and when he sucked her tongue into his mouth she released a small, shocked sound.

The fronts of his knees banged into the wood paneling of his cot and they tumbled onto the mattress. He didn’t register the pain, or his weight on top of hers. All that mattered was getting her out of her gown, and his fingers tangled in silk and lace and frustration made him clumsy. He yanked in aggravation and was rewarded with rending fabric, superimposed with the sound of her gasp. He imagined her prince had only touched her with the upmost care, the upmost worship, but he didn’t have any such inclination. He was a man, and she was a woman, and he was going take her like one.

He shucked off his shirt, kneeling over her. The sensation of her small, questing fingers yanking at the laces of his breeches stunned him. He hadn’t imagined a princess would know what to do, with a man’s breeches or just about anything else involving bed sport. But even if she didn’t, her instincts were spot on, because her small, slender hand disappeared passed his waistband and cupped his hardened cock.

“ _Gods_ ,” he hissed, bowing over her. “Aurora. _Gods_.”

“Please,” she said thickly, sounding as drunk as he felt. “Please.”

His good hand moved through her hair, an odd tender counterpoint to the way his hips jackknifed into her hands. The fingers of his prosthetic arm were imbued with enough magic for him to control them in the mockery of a real hand—Geppetto’s work, the man had owed him a favor—and he used them to gently extract her fingers from his pants with a low moan.

“Let me, let me,” he said, not even really sure what he was saying. “You’re not ready.”

She made a sound of protest but he wasn’t listening, peeling the tattered remains of her gown from her quivering body, and he had to look—had to take a moment leveled above her to appreciate skinny, white legs and small high breasts and the shadowy apex between her thighs. He eased down on his knees, lips touching her closed legs, easing them apart.

“No wait.” Aurora’s hand pushed against her shoulders. “Don’t.”

“It’s okay. You’ll like this I promise,” he swore, and kissed the top of her sex. Her fingers dug crescents into his shoulders and he carefully, oh-so-slowly, swept his tongue through the slick wetness gathered in the hot center of her thighs. She yelped and arched against him, and he rested his good hand on the underside of her thigh, bringing her up to his hungry mouth.

 _You don’t do this to princesses_ , he thought and grinned against her clit. He felt gratified, that here was something no one had done to her. He _was_ a pirate, after all, no matter how the occupation came about and he hoarded treasures like any good miser.

Easing her legs over his shoulder , he sunk his tongue inside her, heady on the taste of her. His thumb rubbed against her clit and he could feel her muscles working toward orgasm and _yes yes let me feel you come_ because he had to get inside her, had to know her, had to purge himself in the perfection of her and he couldn’t do that knowing he’d traded her pleasure in for his own.

Her fingers dug into his hair, yanking at the ends of the strands, her voice crying his name— _Hook, Hook, Hook_ and it was the first time that it felt like a good thing, being called Hook—and he sank deeper into her, mouth open wide over her, while his thumb moved over her hypersensitive bundle of nerves. She came with a scream, and he felt delight in knowing that he had no demure, shrinking princess beneath him. She was a wild, little thing and he should have recognized it—or maybe he didn’t, but hadn’t wanted to recognize it.

Hook crawled up her trembling body, pausing to dip his tongue into her navel, to rub the scrap of his beard along her breasts. Aurora reached for him, drew his mouth to hers, and he carefully eased one slender leg over the curve of his hipbone, and then the other, and his cock pressed against her hot entrance and it felt like banging on heaven’s gate. The urge to forge into her almost had his back bending in two.

Her mouth sucked the underside of his chin. “Please,” she said again.

So he did, pushing into her and shattering the tough membrane inside her. She cried out in shock and pain, arms tight vices around his neck, and he soothed her with a rain of kisses over her face.

“I’m sorry, I can’t—” he tried saying, but his words came up jumbled.

Her hips moved and sent his eyes rolling skyward for mercy. “It’s alright,” she whispered. “Don’t stop.”

No, it wasn’t. He should be tender with her, she deserved tenderness, but he couldn’t, not now—not with old, stale memories still hanging from his ceiling and not with weeks and weeks of wanting her coiling his limbs. He thrust into her, and again and again, throbbing with how tight she gripped him, how wet she was. Her face was pale, pinched and he tried to kiss it away but she couldn’t ascend to the pleasure he was reaching for, not this time.

At the last minute he had the preservation of mind to pull himself out of her, spilling onto the sheets beside them, but all the while she never relinquished her hold on him. She was the first person in his memory that had never let go of him.

 

 

 

 

He woke up so hungover it felt like his insides had been wrung out and left to dry. Light slanted into Hook’s room from the windows and he groaned, slapping an arm over his eyes to shield them. He only had a vague recollection of last night and couldn’t discern if it was a dream or not because if it hadn’t been a dream—if it _hadn’t_ been a dream.

It took a lot to unnerve Hook, but his eyes were wide as he dropped his hand away and looked to his left. Yes, there she was, not even feigning sleep as she curled up into a tight little ball on top of the coverlet. She naked and facing away from him and Hook would have thought that she’d put her clothes back on—but then he remembered he torn her dress the night before, and somehow that made him feel like a cad.

Tentatively—and what a sight, to see a faltering Captain Hook—he reached out and laid a hand on the smooth curve of her backside. She jumped as if scalded, but didn’t acknowledge him. He couldn’t decide what exactly he felt in that moment but since anything less than anger would admit a caring he didn’t want to own up to, he only allowed that to permeate his bones. He swung his legs over the side of the cot, ignoring the pounding ache of his head, and scrubbed a hand over his face before bending to reach for his breeches.

Even as he told himself not to look back at her, his head was turning, eyes tracing the curve of her hip. _She was a virgin_ , Hook thought and told himself he didn’t feel that tinge of guilt.

“You can run a bath, I imagine you’re—sore.” His teeth ached on the word, because he remembered how he had ached for her. Damn, he wished he had drank enough brandy to erase the memories of the previous night.

Aurora still didn’t acknowledge him, but he noticed the way her bare shoulders stiffened at the sound of his face, like he had cracked something vital in her. Acid churned his guilt, a mixture of guilt and lust and remorse and desire, and he hated it and hated her for making him feel that way.

“Regrets, princess?” he sneered, slapping his good hand down on his desk. He ripped off his prosthetic arm and scooped his hook from the floor, twisting it into place with a sturdy snap. It was what belonged there, anyway. “I can see why, giving something to a heartless pirate that your prince never even got to sample.”

To that, she reacted, lurching upward and twisting at her hip to stare at him, eyes red-rimmed and hard. Something hot and sharp gnawed at his intestines, seeing her like that. “ _Don’t_ ,” she snapped, voice hoarse and rusty, like she’d been crying. Hook wasn’t a heavy sleeper, not like her, and it bothered him to think that he’d rolled off her, sunk into a blissful post-coital sleep, and she’d spent the night crying over some—he didn’t know why women cried, he’d always made sure they never did with him; a man had his points of pride.

“Don’t what?” he said, a need to push at her because it felt like the only way to relieve the ache in him.

“Don’t bring Phillip into this,” she said, voice small. “He has _nothing_ to do with this.”

“That’s what I thought,” he snapped, and the heel of his bare foot grinded into the carpet. “But you’ve insisted on dragging him into bed with us so here we are.”

“Is that what you—” Aurora broke off, one hand shooting upward to curl over her mouth. A muffled sob escaped from between her fingers and she turned her head. Wetly she said, “Oh _gods_ , go away.”

He almost did, one foot poised to take him from the room and leave her to whatever emotion it was she was riding out, but then he was crossing swiftly to her, kneeling beside the bed. Aurora peeked at him through a tangle of dark curls that he swept back over her shoulder.

“I didn’t think about him,” she admitted. “Not for a single moment. I didn’t want him. I didn’t _want_ Phillip and I—”

“I don’t know much about princes, but I don’t think yours would want you to pine in memory of him.”

“No, it’s not that it’s—”

“I’m a pirate,” Hook surmised.

She didn’t answer, but her silence was more than enough. He stood and gathered her close to his chest, one hand curved at the backs of her knees, the other wrapped around her back. “Well, you’re not wrong. I _am_ a pirate and princesses really shouldn’t go about fornicating with them—bad habit, that. But that doesn’t mean you don’t need a bath.”

He settled her into the small copper tub and Aurora brought her knees up to her chest as he turned the nuzzle, magically warmed water sloshing in—that hadn’t been his doing, a previous Hook had a refined taste and had loved soaking.

“I’m so tired,” Aurora admitted, under the sound of the water. “I think I was born tired, exhausted.”

But last night it felt like she had saved him. He’d been drowning, in those memories, Tinkerbell dying on the deck, reaching out for him, the _I’m sorry_ still trapped on her lips, listening to Hook’s screams as he fed him to that crocodile. She saved him, made herself his anchor, and there was nothing he could do to repay that debt.

Aurora hands came up, pressing into her face so he couldn’t see her anymore. “Just go away,” she moaned weakly.

It hurt like a slap. He stood abruptly. “Just don’t drown,” he snapped, and left her to her emotional crisis.

 

 

 

 

But Hook did come back a few hours later, with breeches that wouldn’t fit and a shirt that would be too big. The shirt wasn’t his, if only because he wasn’t strong enough to see her in his clothing without _wanting_ her and Hook had a feeling anymore wanting on his part would lead to serious pain, and he so detested hurting himself.

She sat naked and small on his bed, and it bothered him how deject she looked so he tossed them at her. She didn’t even have the courtesy to be indignant at him about it.

“The dress is a lost cause,” he said. “It’s not silk and satin, but you’ll have to make do.”

Her hand fisted on the shirt, but still no words escaped her lips and she stared at a point fixated beyond him. Hook almost bristled.

“I would suggest being clothed if you’re thinking about coming outside,” he said, feeling stifled in a room that smelled like her grief, and her. Seeing that he would get no rise out of her, he left her again.

 _It’s like she’s a corpse_ , he thought, shutting the door behind him. _And I’m not prince to kiss her awake._ And the worst part of it was the way that knowledge grated in his chest; he’d always known what he was, and never made any apologies for—the boy who never grew up or the ruthless sea captain to fear, he’d always presented himself as he was. And he’d never truly wanted to be anything else, but staring out into the sea, with a princess soaking his bed with her tears, the wishing nearly choked him.

 

 

 

The crew tiptoed around him. Hook was known to be a moody sort of man, given to black humors that could end with unfortunate crewmembers being marooned or just simply tossed overboard. Once or twice he’d gone back for them, but as a rule he didn’t often change his mind.

Aurora didn’t come out of his room, and Mr. Smee presented a luncheon tray to him each day—bread and wine untouched. His first mate had even tried to entice the princess with the rare bit of cheese they had onboard; the princess hadn’t turned her nose up at it so much as didn’t acknowledge it even being there.

“Is she sick again, Cap’n?” Mr. Smee asked.

 _Sick with guilt because she let a pirate touch her_ , Hook might have said, but couldn’t get the words passed his craw.

Instead, he shrugged. “It’s not our duty to play nursemaid to princesses, is it? The princess has no wish to eat, let her waste away, then.” Mr. Smee’s gaze was speaking after that, but Hook wasn’t one to be kowtowed by his first mate, no matter the years and experiences that separated them.

He bedded down with his crew now, knowing he’d be unable to sleep beside her without touching her and as ruthless and cruel as he was known to be he’d never forced himself on a woman, and he knew his touch would unwelcomed by the princess he housed. His attention was riveted to the oncoming horizon, were a fog seemed to stretch wispy fingers toward the sky. _Second star to the right and straight on till morning_ , he’d been told once, when his eyes had been bright with boyish excitement. Tinkerbell had made him fly, had taken him passed stars and he’d almost been able to look back and see the turn of universe, had cupped nebulas in his hand. Gravity had pulled him down.

The closer they got to The Pale, the colder it became, like they were sailing towards the cradle of winter. His crew sat shivering beneath the masts when they weren’t working, and climbing the rigging took on dangerous connotations—it was too easy to slip on a rung frozen with morning dew.

It was on a particularly brisk afternoon that Aurora finally emerged from his cabin. Her cheeks reddened instantly from the bitter wind and she stood shivering at the railing just below him, wearing nothing but trousers and a loose cotton shirt, staring out into the open sea.

Gripping the helm, Hook vowed to ignore her. She _had_ cloak, didn’t she? A wispy thing not truly meant to insulate, but a cloak none the less. The princess could march her royal bottom back into his cabin and fetch it if she was so damn cold.

One of his swabs approached her, and perhaps suggested something of a similar nature to the princess. Hook watched Aurora glance up at him, then quickly shy away from. Hook watched the swab’s eyes droop downward, to where the tunic gapped at her neck, and gritted his teeth. He couldn’t blame the man for looking, couldn’t say he was surprised by it—women were a rarity for them all; pirates didn’t often get a chance to stop at ports, and that was _before_ the curse of the Evil Queen had ravaged the land—but he was annoyed by it all the same.

Leaping down from the quarterdeck with solid _thump_ the swab and the princess turned to look at him, one warier than the other. The swab gave him a gap toothed smile and Hook waved him off, stripping off his coat and dumping it on Aurora’s slender shoulders. She was almost swallowed up in it.

“I would have thought you’ve more wits about you, princess, to _not_ step outside without proper attire when it’s cold enough to freeze your ba—to catch your death of it.”

She looked over at him, hitching his coat higher on her shoulders until the black collar poked at her cheeks. Hook didn’t think she’d speak to him at all and they’d both go standing there for all eternity, or until the ship crashed, because he was not about to back away like a quartered dog.

“I wanted some fresh air,” she said, and it bothered him how hoarse her voice was, as if she hadn’t been doing much talking in the last few days.

Stiffly he said, “Not coming out was your decision.”

“I know.”

It was odd, to not like how quickly she agreed with him. All the fight was out of her, all the fire, like the cold had extinguished her. _No, like I have_ , Hook thought, _should have just kept my bloody hands to myself_. Hook found himself contemplating tossing something bodily into the sea, an outlet for frustrated rage. He wanted to be angry at her, for reacting as she had, but the worst of it was that he _couldn’t_ —he was no prince, but she was certainly a princess and if the world had been the way it was meant, she’d be far from his reach.

“How much longer do we have?” Aurora asked.

Hook gritted his teeth. He’d been trying to do the opposite of thinking about what would happen when they got there. Three weeks ago he would have said the princess would have turned delicate tail and begged him so-sweetly to take her back to that pesky little village. Now he was convinced she’d walk into the mouth of hell just because he told her not to. She’d watch him sail away, leaving her to whatever atrocities The Pale incubated, with a hitch in her chin and her lips pressed together.

The problem was—he _wouldn’t_ be able to leave her stranded there, a tasty morsel just waiting to be gobbled up. That steel spine she had a habit of straightening wouldn’t do much to protect her from the nightmare that was The Pale. Only a sword-hand could do that, and as tough as the princess was she was no sword master.

“Not long now, I reason,” Hook said. “We’re in The Pale, just at the edge of it. Time and space move differently here. You never be sure when you’ll get there, you’ll just get there.”

“And when we do, you’ll have fulfilled your end of the bargain,” Aurora said quietly.

His good hand closed into a fist as he turned to look at her, riveted to the way her skin stretched a little too tautly over her cheek bones, hallowed out now, gaunt. She hasn’t been eating, and all at once Hook discovered a channel for his hindered anger. He grabbed at her elbow before she could foresee and sidestep his movement, and yanked her inelegantly to his side. Aurora released an incensed huff of air and Hook felt her small hand shoving at his side. He propelled her forward, boots slapping noisily against the wood, turning the heads of his crew. Someone hooted.

“Mr. Smee!” he bellowed. “Bring me a tray. _Now_.”

He wasn’t dumping a princess’s body at sea, Hook thought sourly, stomach in odd knots. He didn’t give a wit about whatever misguided guilt she harbored about letting him rip her gown off, but he wasn’t going to sit around and what her prostrate herself before the ghost of a dead man. He was a pirate, like he said. And he was ruthless. And pirates took what they wanted.

The door slammed shut behind them with a bang.

 

 

 

Aurora staggered away from him, almost tripped in her haste to escape his grip. Hook only scowled at her, arms crossed over his chest. Aurora stripped off his coat, tossed it between them like a gauntlet, and fastened him with a hot glare.

“Don’t—”

“—touch you?” Hook hazarded. “Bit late for that, isn’t it?”

She paled, a sickly crawl of color, and Hook felt a twinge of disgust at his low blow, but he rallied himself. _Pirate, remember_?

“You don’t understand anything,” she snapped.

“I understand that it was just you and me in that bed, until you dragged your dead not-husband into it and excuse me if I didn’t find it charming or endearing. Pirate, remember? We’re not sharers as a rule, and I certainly don’t care to share with a _corpse_.”

“You’re not a pirate,” Aurora said, and he jerked like he had been slapped. “At least not like you should be. Why couldn’t you just have been like you were supposed to _be_ —ruthless and cruel and terrible?”

“I _am_ ,” Hook snapped, a step eating the space between them.

Aurora only shook her head, her hair coming over her sad, grief-stricken eyes like a shield. “No. You’re not, you only are when you want to be but I—you’re a man, not even a _bad_ man. And I could—I could’ve explained it away if you were a bad man but you’re not and now I—” Abruptly, she sunk to her knees and Hook was reaching out to catch her before he even knew what he was doing. But like just about everything she did, Aurora sunk in a graceful swanning bow. “Mulan loved Phillip. I don’t—I don’t know if he loved her. Mulan said that he only spoke of me though, but there was a look in his eyes—at the very end—like he might have—but he was _loyal_ to me. He never faltered, he never hesitated. He might have wanted someone else, dreamed of someone else, but he sacrificed all that for me. And I—” Her hands came up, cupped her face beneath the curtain of her hair. “I can’t even do that.”

“Stop, stop,” Hook said on a groan, unable to stand it. He knelt down beside her, captured her wrists and drew her hands away. Aurora’s face was dry, but her eyes shone with unshed tears. “None of that.”

“Phillip was so noble, so good. He died for me, _denied_ himself for me, sacrificed himself for me, for Mulan and I—” She broke off on a wet laugh, the smile she raised toward him self-effacing. “I didn’t even go with you for something noble. I couldn’t stand it, looking at Mulan and wondering if I had ruined her happiness, Phillip’s. I had told him not to come after me, when I went to my curse, but I knew he would. I—I needed to run away, and you had wings.”

“I don’t give a deuce about your reasonings, you know. I never do anything for noble purposes. Heroic intentions are dangerous, and usually tedious. I prefer you this way, more _touchable_ —” He swept thumb over her pulse-point, felt the jump of her heart, felt gratified in it. “If your prince was as noble as you say, shouldn’t he want you to do what pleases you? Running away, hopping into a bed with a pirate, or whatever else tickles your fancy?”

“Isn’t that the problem? I haven’t thought of Phillip in so long, I haven’t even _wanted_ to,” she admitted. “I have to live with that now.”

It felt like something momentous, about to fling itself down on him, and generally Hook was in the habit of fleeing momentous things but now he wanted to be nowhere but right here, where she could reach him as she lifted one hand and—

A knock on his door jarred them apart.

Growling, Hook leapt to his feet, throwing his door open. Mr. Smee stood on the other side, tray in hand, and eyes wide.

“ _Go away_!” Hook snarled, and slammed it in his face. He turned back toward the princess, slowly climbing to her feet.

“I’m not normally in the habit of being anything close to noble, but here’s my best shot, Your Highness—you have to know that in about thirty seconds I’m going to cross this carpet to you and do some not very chaste things and this time I would rather it be you and me, not you and me and your dead prince. So if you can’t do that, let a body know so I can salvage some sort of manly pride and leave.”

But even as he was saying it, Aurora was sweeping across the room and up into his arms, opened instinctively to catch her. He hitched her up against him, her legs winding around his waist, and her mouth rained over him, hot kisses that sent every good sense he was in possession of flying well passed the morning horizon.

“I want you,” Aurora breathed against his mouth, fingers carding through his hair. “I don’t care about anything else.”

“Good,” he said, articulation fleeing in a manner similar to his sense. “ _Perfect._ ”

He dragged them to the bed, remembering that pirates had been hanged for lesser offenses. He would go to the gallows whistling a tune, he thought, and pressed his smile to her skin.


	4. the dead are buried alive

Aurora didn’t know where their clothes had disappeared to, but she couldn’t be bothered to care. Hook was a solid, warm presence on top of her and despite his weight, she felt light, airy almost. She’d been struggling for so long, torn between age-old loyalty to Phillip and this shocking, new amount of want for a pirate captain she should have never known. If she had lived happily ever after with Phillip, like she had wished for once upon a dream, Hook would have been nothing more than a ghost story, a cautionary tale of a bad man. And she wasn’t sure what it said about her, that it made her heart ache to think of it.

Hook broke away from her with a gasp, one lean leg settled between her thighs. She followed him upward, trying to recapture his mouth.

“Wait, wait,” he panted slightly, and she took pleasure in knowing she’d made him breathless. “I have to get this off.” He reached over her and popped his hooked hand off with a soft click, tossing it somewhere below their bunk.

She ran her fingertips over the corded muscles in his arms. “I trust you,” she admitted.

He seemed stricken for a moment, like he hadn’t expected her to ever say it and in a way she hadn’t either, before he leaned down and kissed her fiercely enough to bruise her yielding mouth. “I don’t trust myself,” he admitted softly. He plucked his prosthetic arm from the nightstand beyond her head. “I don’t need this, but I like to have a firm grip on all of you.”

A laugh rolled through her and Aurora reached for him, dragging him back down on top of her. He swallowed her gasp next as he elevated himself on his knee, using his leverage to flip them. She was dizzy for a breathless moment, and had to plant her hands on his chest to keep her equilibrium. Hook made an appreciative sound at the back of his throat, and drew one finger down the length of a wayward curl that teased her sides.

“Last time I was bit too out of my mind to do this properly, so this time I’ll let you have the reins.” He grinned, quick and cocksure. “I think you’ll like it.”

There was a blush, starting at the roots of her hair line and edging down to her toes, at the way he looked at her, and the way she knew this itself had to look like. She’d never imagined—admittedly, her daydreams regarding Phillip had been rather chaste. Aurora leaned over him, her hair brushing across his cheeks, and kissed him. Hook’s cock rubbed between her thighs and she moaned at the jolt of pleasure that raced up through her.

“Help me,” she entreated, only breaking away from him far enough to moan the words. “I don’t know what to do.”

Hook laughed, but it sounded pained. “You’re a smart girl,” he said. “I think you can figure it out.” But his hands framed her hips and he helped her angle herself over him. His fingers bit into her flesh as she eased herself down. There was a still a pinching pain at his invasion, but not nearly as unbearable at the first time. Her legs clamped on his thighs as she steadied herself, fingers splayed on his chest, her breath escaping her lips in sharp, little puffs. Hook didn’t move but Aurora could feel the bunch of his muscles beneath her, his thumb sweeping over her hipbone in tandem with the pulse of her heart.

Eventually Aurora found a rhythm, easier when she began to think of it something like a slow dance, rocking over him. Hook hissed out a breath against her mouth, but his hands rested motionless on her hips, making no attempt to control her motions, do anything but what she wanted. Aurora arched back and tossed her hair over her shoulder, canting her hips, enthralled by the sensation of Hook’s flexing legs beneath her.

He lifted a hand, rubbing the flat of his heel against her abdomen, a gesture that felt oddly intimate even as he moved inside her. She grinded down on him and he jerked upward in shock, and fire alighted each and every nerve ending in her body. The world seemed to tilt and she rolled along its axis, angling herself over him, driven now not by any sort of tenderness but a desire to grasp the cluster of stars that seemed just behind her reach.

Her fingers moved, instinctively driven for more stimulation, and kneaded her breasts. Some part inside of Aurora was curled up in horror that she _could_ do this; it was decadent and hardly graceful and very decidedly un-princess like. The governesses she’d had in her youth had only described the act as a duty; a way to get children, something that could be loving under the circumstances. They’d never described the way it felt, as though she was being eaten alive by pleasure, the way she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began. The heel on his good hand continued down, to massage against the bundled of nerves at the very top of her sex.

Aurora gave a wordless cry, bowing over him again, arms draped over his shoulders. She bucked against his hand, and he thrust up into her. His prosthetic fingers shifted through the sweaty tangles of her hair to cup her cheek, and he drew their foreheads together as their lower bodies moved frantically, desperately seeking release.

“Let me feel it,” the captain’s silky voice murmured against her lips. His nose moved across hers, while his fingers plucked and stroked. “I want to _feel_ it, Aurora. _Please_.”

She did with a scream that he swallowed. Her release ripped through her, leaving her wrung out, sated, and exhausted. Aurora lay over him, fingers clutching at his shoulders as Hook worked his good hand around to the press into the small of her back, holding her flush against him to receive his frenzied thrusts. His arms were locked tight around her, holding her prone, and the only movements of her body were from where his heaving chest raised her.

Aurora felt his husky laugh reverberate deep in his chest as it rumbled up out of his throat. She somehow found just enough energy to tilt her head and blink up at him blearily. Hook’s smile wavered in her sleepy vision.

“Told you,” he said, sounding rather smug, “you’d like it.”

Sending him a look, she twined her hand through the mat of wiry hair on his chest, letting it ring around her fingers, and gave it a tug.

 

 

 

 

Aurora didn’t sleep, but she rested, feeling secure, with Hook's arms looped around her middle. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed; a draft seemed to enter the room, wrapping icy tendrils around her body. She shivered and burrowed into Hook’s side, seeking the warmth radiating from his body.

Fingers danced along her naked thigh and roused her enough to lift her head. Hook grinned down at her, easing one leg between hers, scooting her up high enough on his chest so his chin bumped onto the top of her head.

“I can make you warm,” he invited, voice silky and smooth. She raised a hand over her head with a smile, shifting her fingers through the glossy, dense locks of hair.

“Okay,” she murmured, voice hoarse from sleep. She planted her hands on his chest and leaned upward.

The door to Hook’s cabin opened with a bang, rattling the opposite wall and sending a bottle crashing to the floor. Aurora yelped in surprise, but Hook was already throwing sheets over her. She had a glimpse of Mr. Smee and the burly quartermaster standing flabbergasted in the threshold before her world was obscured with the color of white.

“— _damn_ good reason,” Hook was saying.

“Cap’n,” that was Mr. Smee, nervous and breathless. “Cap’n, ah, but you said to tell you when we were—we’re _here_.”

 _Here_. Aurora felt a jolt of electricity shoot up her spine. Here could only mean one thing. The Pale. They had finally arrived, and a tremor of nerves collected in the pit of her stomach—fear and excitement and worry. She poked her head out from underneath the sheet, Mr. Smee sending her something very close to a scandalized look. The quartermaster’s mouth nearly hit the floor.

“ _Out! Out!_ ” Hook snarled, “Or I’ll have your bleeding heads!” The door slammed shut with a bang.

Hook jumped off the bunk, scooping up his pants and shoving them up and over his lean legs. Only when he was relacing his breeches did he glance back at her. “C’mon, Your Highness,” he said, an odd tender strain to his voice, “get dressed. You’ll have to wear my coat again.”

Aurora did, stuffing her arms into his overly long sleeves after dressing herself. She tied her hair back with a strip of leather and followed the captain out in the cold, open air.

“This is—” she began.

“The Pale,” Hook finished.

She understood at last what Hook had meant when he had described The Pale as wrong. The colors seemed leeched out of the world, diluted into dull grays and whites. Even the red embroidered on Hook’s sleeve seemed to have been sapped of colors once she stepped outside his cabin. The ship seemed to sluggishly inch forward on the syrupy water. They seemed to have entered a kind of tributary, the trees weeping lowly to brush against the water. The leaves were dark as well, like a permanent fall had set in, but even the reds and browns were blunted and monotonous.

The world felt too quiet, like noise had been sucked out of the air. The sound of the _Jolly Roger_ moving slowly through the water was muffled, like the sounds were being projected from far away. Aurora’s breath puffed out in a white fog above her lips as she moved forward to take in the quiet, dead world around her.

Snow drifted down in light flurries, not pure like she had known, but grey, polluted. One flake landed on Aurora’s cheek and she pressed two fingertips to the frigid moisture on her cheek.

“The Pale, gents,” Hook said, his voice perversely loud against the stillness of the air. “Been a while, hasn’t it?”

“Cap’n brought us here awhile ago, to bury the fairy dust. Terrible voyage, lost of a lot of good men—didn’t think we’d be coming back,” Mr. Smee admitted, and then sent her a horrified look. “Not that you’re not worth it, Miss. You certainly are—”

“It’s alright,” Aurora said, the sound of her own voice shocking her. She reached out and gave Mr. Smee’s arm a small pat.

“Lower the rope!” Hook bellowed, sweeping one hand through the air. The crew hastened to obey.

Aurora swallowed, tasting the bile of her own fear. “Thank you, Mr. Smee. For looking after me. I’ll miss you.” On instinct, she bent down and pressed her lips to the rounded curves of his cheek. The flesh went ruddy and the first man seemed to attempt to disappear into his whiskers.

Inhaling a rush of cold air through her nose, Aurora took a step toward the ladder being lowered over the side. One hand curled along the wooden railing of the ship and she peered down over the side, into the murky water below.

A hand curled at the inside of her elbow and drew her back. “Where do you think you’re going?” Hook demanded.

“The ladder,” she explained, “the bargain. I set you free; you take me to The Pale.”

Hook didn’t say anything, but a dangerous dark look made bright flicks appear in his eyes, like ice chips. His fingers bit roughly into her arm, tight enough so she could feel it through the leather of his jacket, and she had to press her lips together to keep from yelping. The captain gave her a tug, and she fell against his side.

“That’s the sort of man you think I am?”

“That’s the sort of man you told me you _were_ ,” Aurora pointed out. “I don’t think you’re as cruel as you like people to think, but I don’t expect you to put your life on the line, for me.”

“But your prince would?”

The pain came, but stilted and a halfhearted battering. She squeezed her eyes shut against it, and heard Hook mutter a sour, “Gods, ‘Rora, I’m sorry,” and she believed he was. And he should be. It certainly wasn’t a kind blow.

“Phillip would. Phillip _did_. And Phillip died.” She opened her eyes, clear and bright, and met his. With his crew watching him, hawkeyed and beady—they’d only follow a strong man, Hook had said, and she knew any opening, any sign of weakness, was to invite mutiny—it didn’t feel right to raise her hand and lay it on his cheek—but the itch was in her fingers. “I would rather you didn’t.”

“Well, prepare yourself for disappointment.” He didn’t let her go again, instead dragging her bodily toward the ladder. “The me not going part—not the me dying part, I would rather _not_ do that.”

The men had lowered a dinghy, the water sloshing black and oily on the ribbed sides. Hook swung himself over the side, navigating the rungs with an experienced grace. Aurora followed with a backwards glance. It made sense why Emma insisted on wearing breeches, Aurora noted; it was far easier to climb without a skirt tangling her legs.

Hook’s arm encircled her waist, lifting her from the ladder and dumping her down into the rowboat.

“You know the rules, Mr. Smee!” Hook called, hand curled in a crescent around his mouth to project his voice. “Two days—no more no less.”

“Two days?” Aurora asked, sitting on the small bench. The boat rocked ominously enough for her to grip the sides in a white-knuckled grip.

“The rules of the ship; if I’m not back in two days they’ll leave without me—or kill each other trying to decide who’s the new captain,” Hook said, shoulders moving in an artless shrug.

Aurora stared at him, at the casual way he dismissed the sacrifice he was making for her. “Hook, I—”

“You’re going to have to help me row,” Hook broke in, lifting his hook. “I’m rubbish with this hand, as you can see.”

He made room for her on the middle bench, and Aurora scooted in close, their thighs touching. He was warm despite the snow that drifted down in a soft sheet, catching in her hair and melting it so the curls clung damp and cold to the back of her neck. Hook reached out and swept her makeshift ponytail over the side of her shoulder, but said nothing else.

They rowed in silence, the only words spoken between them when Hook called for a change in direction. There was a little hamlet jutting out from the left shoreline, a thin rope of snowy beach with trees spiraling into the grey sky. She understood what Hook had meant, when he had told her that the magic was all wrong here. The air felt too heavy, like it had been mutated, corrupted. Leftover magic had left scars here, and she could see the white-puckered skin in the air.

“What’s happened to this place?”

“Magic,” Hook answered, hunched over his oar. “Or what’s left of it—when a spell is cut short or isn’t completed, all wrong and twisted. Most things here that come here wind up twisted, too. That’s why I buried it here, Tinkerbell’s magic. With her gone it got corrupted, ruined everything it touched.”

Aurora stared down into the purple web-work of veins on the back of her hand, standing out in stark relief to the pallor of her skin.

“You don’t have to worry,” Hook said suddenly, breaking her from her thoughts. “Your curse ran its course. It won’t find you here.”

Yes, she had been buried remembering it—thinking of that drowning blackness that had swallowed her mind, and stolen her dreams from her. She hadn’t thought herself so transparent, or that he would be able to read her—to know her well enough to hazard her thoughts.

“Thank you,” she said, and let the heaviness of it sit between them.

 

 

 

 

It felt like they rowed for hours before they reached the shore of the small hamlet. Aurora could feel the skin on her palm rubbing away to blister when the boat rocked harshly as it skidded along the swallow, sandy bottom. Hook leapt over the side, calf-deep in water, and brought the boat the rest of the way to the shore. He helped her onto the shore, the tails of his coat dipping into the frigid water.

“Here?” Aurora asked.

“Further in,” Hook corrected, gesturing into the tree line. “Didn’t reckon many would brave the Pale for a handful of malfunctioning fairy dust, but I thought to err on the side of caution.”

They trudged up the slope of sand, Hook with his sword in hand. Aurora felt a prickling sensation of being watched, like eyes in the trees.

“There’s all sorts of dangers here,” Hook said. “Heard there’s a Jabberwock somewhere, but I’ve never had the misfortune of running into it. Let’s keep it that way. Get the dust, and leave.”

She followed him into the trees, stepping over leg-sized roots that protruded like veins of the earth. Birds sat, dead still, on the thick, dark branches but didn’t move, scatter or acknowledge them. Like they were dead. Aurora felt her skin crawl in an animal instinct of caution.

“Not sure the dust will do you any good,” Hook called to her over his shoulder. “Like I said—all wrong, it is. By the time I got back to Tinkerbell’s cache, the mermaids had gone feral, and were eating most of Tiger Lily’s men.”

Aurora came up to his side and caught his elbow. “Why did you?” When he glanced down at her, she elaborated, “Bury the fairy dust. Corrupted or not, you could have sold it for an imaginable amount—to Lancelot, to Regina’s mother before she was captured, but you didn’t. Why?”

Hook paused, lips pressing down into a thin, white line. “Do you think I can’t do a noble thing?”

She shook her head fiercely. “No, that’s not what I think at all—”

“Tinkerbell—she was wild, but she wasn’t evil. She would have hated to see it like that. I owed her that much. And believe it or not, I didn’t want to see the world eaten alive by fairy dust gone wrong.”

“And you’re giving it to me.”

“So I am,” Hook observed. “Why do you want it?”

“What?” Aurora came up short, the top of her boot catching on an upturned root that sent her crashing into Hook’s back. He turned to her. “I told you. I want—”

“No, you told me what Lancelot wants. Be honest with me, princess. You said you needed to run, and I had wings but if you had just asked me to take you with me, I would have. You made the dust part of the bargain—you made it a _bargain_. Why?” His good hand rose, gripping her shoulder in a grasp near bruising. Aurora released a small gasp of pain, and stepped away. He let her. “Did you want to bring him back?”

“Don’t—”

“Your prince? Magic’s crossed the veil a time or two, Snow White will attest to that. Did you think you could use it to reverse your prince’s fate?” He didn’t chase her, but Aurora felt very much like she was being crowded. Backed into a corner. “ _Tell_ me.”

“No!” She sucked in a breath. It was all wrong, just like the heavy fog of magic in the air. What had been clear in her mind only weeks before felt blurry, unreal. Like it was from a dream she’d forgotten. How could she _explain_ it? That guilt—Phillip dead, and the look in Mulan’s eyes, _love_. “Yes—maybe. In the beginning, I thought I—but after everything… You can’t honestly _think_ that I—”

He cut off her words, clamping his good hand over her mouth, sword discarded into the damp earth. He moved his hooked hand to his lips in an obvious motion for silence. Aurora’s eyes widened, lips parting underneath his hand, tasting the salt of his flesh.

“Be quiet. We’re not alone,” Hook murmured, and lifted his hand away before bending down to pick up his sword. Aurora had strapped a dagger to her thigh, and slid it silently from its sheath. It wouldn’t do much, but she knew how to use it.

In a blur of green and yellow, a figure plowed into Hook, knocking Aurora aside and sending her sprawling into the dirt, the knife slipping from her clammy fingers. She cursed and scrambled, nails digging at wet dirt, until she reclaimed it.

Hook lifted his sword protectively in front of his face, the clawed fingers of the figure pushing it closer and closer to his chin. She was tall, willowy, long blonde hair following in a wildly, mossy tangle down her back. Long, bronze legs tucked up into an earthen dress, bare feet dirt-covered, and teeth pointed and bare.

“Tinkerbell,” Hook gasped.

Aurora climbed to her feet, scream lodged in her throat as Tinkerbell pushed Hook’s sword to his chin, her strength unnatural. She’d only met three fairies in her whole life, but they had been small, good-natured. She’d heard of wilder fae, but the cruelty in this was unnatural—like the magic. Was the magic doing it? Tinkerbell was dead but magic could cloak things, and make illusions. And Hook carried her corpse around his neck like a cross, a punishment he bore daily.

Hook’s back plowed into the wide tree behind him, legs braced. Tinkerbell made an inhuman growl and pressed the sword in even closer, clearly having the upper hand. Blood bloomed at his chin, a thin line where the very edge of his sword touched.

 _No_ , Aurora thought, panic coursing hotly through her. “Leave him alone!” she screamed, and plowed into Tinkerbell. Her knife angled for the underside of the creature’s rib’s, but the long body twisted, turning and scissoring into Aurora’s legs. Pain radiated through her legs, but she escaped the claws and clambered to her feet. Her second-long look at Hook showed him still braced against the tree, good hand closed in a fist at his heart, shell-shocked.

She didn’t think, she only reacted. “C’mon!” she shouted. Tinkerbell came rapidly to her feet, sweeping at her. Aurora twisted out of her grasp, rushing to the left, deeper into the trees. She couldn’t take Tinkerbell in a fair fight, but Hook wouldn’t be able to fight her at the moment.

Tinkerbell gave chase as Aurora hoped she would, feet slapping against the dirt. She sounded like a nightmare horse, come to snatch her up. Aurora forced her strides to lengthen, her lungs burning from lack of breath. She weaved through the trees, clutching her knife so tightly that the skin on her palm broke beneath the pressure. Warm blood splashed down her wrist.

Tinkerbell’s hand curled into her hair and shoved. Aurora went sprawling into the dirt. She turned, but Tinkerbell bore down on her, teeth snapping as Aurora lifted her knife to defend herself. It was easily batted away, and Aurora could see the hunger and the hate in this creature’s eyes. It wasn’t Tinkerbell, whatever it was. It was nothing more than a nightmare given flesh.

It yanked her head back by her hair and Aurora released a small sob of pain, her neck arched so tightly that her skin twinged in protest.

A hook curled across not-Tinkerbell’s throat and yanked. Blood spurted hot across Aurora’s cheeks and she cried out in horror, in pain, as Hook yanked the thing away, tossing it off of her.

“You’re not her,” Hook said, glancing at the thing. “I should’ve never been fooled. Tinkerbell’s having a good laugh at me now, wherever she is. Wild as she was, Tinkerbell was good straight down to the souls of her feet. And she loved me. And she wouldn’t have blamed _me_ for what happened. I just wish she would have, so I could have my own sort of absolution.”

Sucking in a hard breath, he reached down and pulled Aurora to her feet. She hunched over, bracing her hands on her knees, and sucked in air through her mouth. It still felt wrong, but it was better than the death that had been staring down at her.

“Are you alright?” Hook asked. “I told you—magic is all wrong here. It takes dreams—or nightmares maybe-and makes them real. Maybe it’s not anything at all but a defense mechanism.”

“I’m alright. Thank you.”

“For saving your life? Trying to make me noble, yet again?”

“No. Just trying to understand _you_.”

He stared at her eyes, eyes oddly bright. “Look—”

Hook’s sword pushed through his side, bright with his blood. Aurora screamed, arms stretching to catch him. His weight brought her to the ground, and they both crashed to their knees. Hook’s head fell limply to her shoulders, the warm slush of his blood seeping onto her shirt. Tinkerbell stood above them, jagged teeth a disturbing white against her blood-red lips as she gave Aurora a triumphant smile, yanking the sword free of Hook with a sickening squelch.

“ _Mine_ ,” Tinkerbell snarled, and fizzled into smoke, dissipating into a serpentine tendril that wound its way up into the grey sky.

“No!” Aurora sobbed, one long stream of sound. She lowered Hook to his back, brushing aside his bangs. His eyes blinked blurrily upward. Aurora’s head pressed into the wound at his side, gushing blood, seeping between the crevices of her fingers. “Please, no. No. No. _Nononononononononono_.” She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t do it again, see any man die for her.

“You’re almost there,” Hook murmured, and swallowed thickly. “The tree, with the weeping leaves. Can’t miss it. That’s where I buried what was left of Tinkerbell—seemed appropriate then.”

“Don’t talk,” Aurora pleaded, the fingers of her free hand moved slowly down his cheek. “Please, don’t talk. Please stay with me. Don’t leave me here. Hook. _Killian_. Please.”

“You’ll be alright,” he told her, smiling. Blood stained his teeth a dull crimson. “You’re a survivor, tougher than a pirate.”

The laugh that escaped was watery. “Just hold on. I’ll go back to the ship, get your crew to come—come get you.”

“Won’t make it. It’ll take too long. Do no good. You might not be able to get your way back, if you leave now so—it’s what you came for.” He lifted his good hand, but was wobbly and unable to perceive depth and space and it hovered to the side of her. “You’re so beautiful, you know? Too good for a bloody pirate, anyway.”

The words tapered off, and no entreating would convince him to stay with her, and then to come back with her. She shook him, kissed him, tried to breathe life into the lips that grew steadily colder. Then, she simply cried, her blood-streaked face pressed into the crook of his motionless neck, fingers locked into the lapels of his coat. She wasn’t sure how long she sat like that until she lifted her dirt covered, bloody, tear-stained face from him and sought the tree. She found it easily enough, like he had said, not far away, dripping green leaves down to the floor.

Feeling as heavy as an immovable boulder, Aurora pushed herself to her feet and sluggishly trudged to the tree. She could see where the earth had been turned, undisturbed by the air, and kneeled beside it, nails pulling the dirt loose, tossing it behind her. She dug and dug, her nails cracked, blood caking her fingertips, but she didn’t stop—didn’t register the pain or the way the world was so still around her. She barely registered anything at all; it felt like she was asleep again, unable to scream though her lungs burned with the need to.

Her fingers scraped against wood, and Aurora brushed aside the door, revealing the chest. She yanked it free of the hole, and it thumped heavily against her leg. The latch was broken, and she opened the lid.

A warmth glow bathed her face, and within the purple velvet inside, she cupped the ball of glass, lifting it from its cradle. It was like staring into a crystal ball, the fairy dust swirling and trapped inside. She could feel it move, like streams of hot hair underneath her palms. She lifted it to her face, against her cold and clammy cheeks, and her tears splattered against it. She hadn’t released she’d been crying.

Aurora stood, lifting the glass ball above her head. She squeezed her eyes shut, sucking in a sobbing breath, and brought her hands down.

Two hands cupped hers, and Aurora’s eyes snapped up. Something between a cry and a scream tangled in her throat, clawing at her insides, desperate to escape, as her hands were brought chest level, cupped in warm, familiar flesh.

Phillip looked at her tenderly, like he had in the last moments of his life. His smile was slow and sad, and he took a step forward. Aurora couldn’t feel her legs, couldn’t force herself to step back.

“ _Phillip_ ,” she said, close to weeping.

“I’ve missed you,” her prince said quietly. “Aurora, I’ve missed you so much. I knew you’d come here, though. Knew you’d find me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The fairy dust,” Phillip explained. His thumb moved over her bruised knuckles. “It’s the last magic left, and it’s so powerful. Can you feel it? Don’t smash it, not here. You can use it to bring me back. It _can_ bring me. But don’t smash it. If you do, all the magic will escape, unharnessed and wild. Save it. That’s why you came here, isn’t it? To save me, like I saved you?”

“Phillip,” Aurora sobbed, and could feel the cracks in her heart like fine porcelain. “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you so much. You were my everything.”

“And you were mine,” he agreed sadly. “I don’t regret it, saving you. I love you.”

“And I love you. I always will.”

“We can be together. You don’t have to miss me anymore.” He drew her closer, keeping their hands clutched. “Take the fairy dust with you. Bring me back, and we can be together.”

Another sob escaped her, and Aurora bowed her head against the sheer enormity of grief that threatened to crush her.

“Like we dreamt, Aurora.”

 _Like we dreamt._ Sniffling, she lifted her head and gave him a smile. “I did dream about you, Phillip, and the future we’d have. But I don’t dream—not anymore.”

She yanked herself away, and Phillip’s face twisted in a dark rage. Aurora was already lifting her hands and the glass ball above her head. Phillip’s face seemed to melt and became Tinkerbell’s with pointed teeth and animal growls, then melted again—Aurora saw Maleficent, saw other faces she didn’t recognize, men and women, drawn or trapped by the fairy dust’s magic, she didn’t know. She didn’t care.

With all her might, as the creature lifted a long, shadowy hand toward her, she threw the glass ball of fairy dust down. It shattered into a million pieces of iridescent light at her feet, and a blast of light sent her sprawling away.

And there was nothing.


	5. straight on till morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, here we are. The end of the tale. I would like to give a huge thank you to everyone whose been so supportive of this crazy endeavor despite the fact that a) it began when we didn't even know who Hook was and b) it's a pairing that probably won't even happen on the show. You guys really have been wonderful. And a super special thank you to Ellyce, who's been wonderful and supportive and screams with me at 2am about Hook/Aurora feels.
> 
> thank you guys so much and enjoy the last chapter
> 
> ...or is it? (mwhahahahaha)

Warmth bathed his face, and beneath him the ground was soft and plush. Hook was convinced there’d been a mistake made, that he’d somehow wound up traveling upward instead of downward like any pirate should. He tried to open his eyes, knowing he’d only get a glimpse of that pearly gate before it was barred from him forever, but his eyelids felt like anchors, weighed down.

But the world smelt of pine, and charred wood. Not heavenly scents, those, and as his hearing cleared he caught the sound of metallic _tangs_ that could only mean swords. He wasn’t a religious man by any means, but Hook was fairly certain there was no fighting up above either. Struggling against his drugging sleep, he wiggled the fingers on his good hand, and the familiar sensation of his phantom, severed left hand told him that wherever he was, he was lacking his hook.

Groaning, he worked open his eyes. His vision was fuzzed, puffed out at the edges, and for a long moment, all he could take in was how bright it was, making the blurred shapes in front of him glow. His vision cleared slowly, and the world focused and sharpened, and Hook made out the shapes of walls and the rafters of the low-hung ceiling. Sweet-smelling moss had been woven around the ceiling beams, and someone had chained purple flowers in them. Wherever he was, it wasn’t a place commonly used to house pirates—the flowers gave it away.

Hook forced himself up into a sitting position, his side screaming in protest. He cupped it, remembering the sensation of the sword piecing him. He had known the Tinkerbell illusion to be no natural thing, and should have known that a natural death would have been no solution. But he hadn’t been thinking, his normal cool composure and logical thought process abandoning him at the look of terror in Aurora’s eyes.

_Aurora._

He pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the stiffness in his limbs—like he hadn’t been using them for days, trying to remember what had happened. To him. To Aurora. All he could recall was the pain, Aurora’s voice drifting over him like a gentle wave, growing farther and farther away. What she did after that, Hook didn’t know. He’d been dead, he was sure of it, and for a moment he just stood and shook with the knowledge.

His breeches had been laid out on the small table across from his bed, his white shirt spread out on the top. The hole where his sword had punctured it had been carefully stitched. He dressed slowly, stretching out his limbs, popping his joints. He went searching for his hook, but only came across his prosthetic arm laid underneath his coat on the chair. He snapped it into place, the nerve endings on his hand jolting after the long absence of it. His boots were propped up beside the door, and Hook shoved his feet into them before stepping out into the sunlit world.

“I did go to hell after all,” he bemoaned, recognizing Lancelot’s little village instantly.

It seemed more crowded than it had been, but in all fairness, he hadn’t been paying much attention when he’d first been in residence here. Still, there was a good crowd mulling about, chattering, and they weren’t inclined to rush to inform the guards that Hook had gotten free.

He stepped down the first step just as an old woman rounded its side. She had a basket hooked at her elbow, and sent him a look that said she would prefer him unconscious in the bed.

“Oh, you’re up,” she observed, largely unimpressed.

“It seems I am,” Hook began. He wasn’t one to admit his confusion, but he couldn’t help himself and said, “What—”

“Weren’t sure you were going to make it, when we carried you here,” the old woman said, clobbering up the stairs in her heavy boots.

“We?” He laughed. “Last I checked, I was bleeding my guts out at the Pale. Not exactly a well-thriving city, that.”

“It wasn’t. Now it’s a bridge.”

He stared at her, she stared right back.

“If I hadn’t owed you for it, I would have just left you to die,” the old woman admitted. “It might have been a better kindness, then letting her think you had a chance. But anyway, you’re a pirate, so you’re stubborn and you survived.”

“I take it you’re the one who healed me, then?”

The old woman sniffed. “I’m no healer, but I was the only in the group with any real experience, since Whale didn’t come along the first time—and knowing him, he’ll drag his heels about coming altogether, so you’ll have to make do with me. If you’re wanting to thank me, save it,” she said and it surprised a laugh out of Hook. He had a soft spot for humorless women, apparently. “Though you _can_ thank my granddaughter, since she helped and she likes praise from attractive men. Ruby’s off hunting, but she’ll be back before lunch.”

“Ruby?” He stared at her, at the fluffy halo of wiry, grey hair. At the basket, and the crossbow settled comfortably on top of it. “Red Riding Hood? So you must be her—”

“Grandmother, yes.”

“From Storybrooke.”

“ _By way of_ Storybrooke.” Shaking her head, the old woman looked out beyond him, to the trees beyond the makeshift walls of the village. “This is home, what’s left of it.” She seemed to straighten herself, draw herself out of her thoughts, practicality almost an aura infusing her. “Nevermind that now, I was coming to change your bandages.”

Hook shook her off, trying to find some semblance of order in the scattering thoughts of his mind. If Red Riding Hood was here, out of Storybrooke, that meant that the fairy dust had been successfully used to form a bridge, and that meant that Aurora had to— _Aurora_.

“No,” he said. “I still need to—”

The woman rolled her eyes. “I thought you might. Took the king, that knight, Queen Snow White, _and_ Sir Lancelot to get her out of the sickroom.” Without much concern for the sore state of his ribs, her wrinkled, surprising steady hand slapped against his side. Hook nearly doubled over. “It’ll keep for a few more hours, I suppose. Just make sure you find your way back to me before you give yourself an infection and destroy all my hard work.”

“Aye, aye,” he managed, cupping his side against the pain.

The old woman gave him a less-than-amused look. “She’s down by the back wall with Mulan.”

Hook sluggishly made his way down the wooden steps, feeling it sag beneath him as his side screamed in protest. It was hard to walk with any sort of dignity with a still mostly-healing sword wound, but Hook gave it his damndest.

People sent him looks as they crossed path, shying away from him. He was gratified to know that his reputation still preceded him and they knew enough to be wary of Captain Hook.

But a lad, no more than ten, banged into his knees. Hook brought his teeth down hard over his hiss of pain as wide, brown eyes stared at him in mute horror. At first, Hook thought it was because he’d heard one too many bedtime stories about cutthroat pirates and Captain Hook making small boys walk the plank, but then the boy registered his face as more than just the man he’d crashed into. The horror melted away, replaced by a look of pure glee.

“You’re _Hook_ ,” he said, childlike earnestness infused in his voice.

Hook untangled himself in a hurry. “Occasionally. Now—”

“I’ve read all about you! In my book!”

He glanced down at the boy, frowning. He didn’t look familiar, and his memory couldn’t recall seeing many children in the village before. “From Storybrooke, are we?”

Before the boy could open his mouth, a woman barged passed him, snagging the lad’s arm. “I told you not to run off, Henry,” she said, and threw curls of blonde over her shoulders, glancing at him. “Oh, _you_.”

Hook grinned. “Miss Swan.”

“This is my kid and he doesn’t like to watch where he’s going,” she said, and Hook imagined that was the closest the woman would ever come to a formal sort of apology.

“Sorry,” the boy said, not sounding it.

“Looking for Aurora?”

Hearing her name was like a punch to the gut. _Aurora_. Her voice floated past his ears, crying—it felt like he was always making her cry, but this particular sound was connected with the feelings of her tight fingers gripping his shoulders, shaking him.

“My crew, actually,” Hook lied. “Which way to the dungeons?”

“Tavern, actually. And it’s that way.” She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder. A sly little look crossed her face, a grin edging up at the left side of her mouth and Hook decided that no, he didn’t like Emma Swan, after all. She looked like she knew him much too well. She pointed forward. “Mulan’s over that way, you know, with the princess she was charged to keep a watch on. Wasn’t too happy that she was out of her sight for those three and a half weeks.”

“The princess doesn’t need a babysitter,” Hook muttered.

“Maybe Mulan’s just worried about bad influences,” Emma said, still sounding oh-so smug. “Doesn’t matter. Since you’re going to the tavern.”

Hook had the distinct impression that he was being laughed at as he pivoted on his heel and walked back towards the wall. This was why he liked to sail with bloodthirsty pirates, he thought, you always knew what to expect.

His step embarrassingly flattened as he caught sight of wispy purple and white. She was back in a dress, floating around her like water. How could she look so perfectly put together surrounded by the smell of wet earth and sweat? Her hair was a dense, careful wave of curls, not a strand out of place. Her back was to him, and Hook traced the small curve of her back like a starving man would a feast.

Aurora sat on a makeshift chair of crates, but it might as well have been a throne inlayed with diamonds and emeralds. She was nodding to something Lancelot was saying, a sheen of sweat collected along his brow. Another man stood next to him in his shirtsleeves, crooked smile on his animated face as he gestured wildly to the section of the wall they were repairing. Hook had only had the pleasure of seeing Queen Snow White’s husband once—at their wedding, which he had crashed, mostly to see if there weren’t some royal jewels worth making off with; that plan had been spectacularly ruined by the Queen Regina’s grand entrance—but he recognized King James.

King James stopped, eyes lifting to his, and he said something to Aurora. Hook winced as she spun and faced him, climbing quickly to her feet. Hook realized he hadn’t been certain he _wanted_ her to see him. He was no good at things like that. He wished desperately, choking on something very much like panic, that he had gone to the tavern inside.

The hem of skirt lifted just off the ground, Aurora walked with the sort of grace and precision that he knew had had to be drilled in her since birth. _Stand up straight, Aurora, smile pretty, show your teeth_.

“Look who’s decided to join the land of living,” Aurora said. “You missed the reunion.”

“Good,” Hook said, meaning it. “I’m rubbish at sentimentality.”

“Only when you want to be,” Aurora countered, but her confidence seemed to taper off. She brushed a hand down the soft skirt of her gown, staring at his boots. Hook knew the feeling, odd as it was. They hadn’t always said what they meant, but the two of them had never been at a loss for words—not with each other.

So Hook decided to plow forward, as was inherent to his nature. “What happened? The last thing I remember—”

“You died,” the princess said in a rush. “I smashed the fairy dust—the glass ball it was in. And then you were breathing, and King James and Red were there and helped me get you to the _Jolly Roger_. Red’s grandmother looked after you but you had lost so much blood, they said. They didn’t know how you were alive.”

“It was fatal,” Hook agreed, and Aurora winced like it had been a slap. He glanced down at his hand, surprised to see it clenched white-knuckled into a fist. Terror hadn’t come, bleeding to death in her arms, because the only thing in his vision had been her bloody, tear-streaked face. But _now_ —the fear of his own mortality raced through him. It had been fatal, he’d stabbed a man enough times to know a kill. He _should_ have died.

“I don’t know how it happened. Maybe it was the magic.” Aurora glanced down. “I don’t even know exactly _what_ happened, after I smashed the ball. I woke up, and the Pale was— _light_. It was snowing, but the snowflakes were like sparks of light.”

Both King James and Sir Lancelot were watching him, and Hook wanted to scowl. Instead, he rubbed at the back of his neck—a nervous habit that he’d buried long before adulthood. Aurora still wasn’t looking at him.

“But you’re alright?” he ground out.

She looked up at him, blinked, like she hadn’t expected him to ask. “Oh. I’m fine.”

“Magic tends to leave a mark.” His hand, her dreamless sleep, magic had carved itself into their bones.

“I know that.”

“I suppose you would.” He took a breath. Captain Hook, he reminded himself, was not known to be flustered, no matter how pretty the woman who stood before him. But then again, Captain Hook wasn’t usually in the habit of standing in front of the woman who had saved his life.

“I saw Phillip.”

It was like a kick to his gut, the air abandoning his lungs. “What?”

“Phillip,” Aurora repeated. “I saw him. Like you saw Tinkerbell, I suppose. He didn’t want me to free the fairy dust. He wanted to keep it, use it to bring him back.”

“I don’t see a dashing prince about,” Hook observed, his tongue feeling oddly heavy in his mouth. “I suppose it would not be remiss of me to assume you didn’t—”

“I didn’t.”

 _You smashed it instead_ , Hook thought, _and gave me back my life at the cost of a prince’s_. He didn’t know what that meant, he didn’t know if he wanted to know what that meant. They stood only two feet apart, but it might as well have been a canyon.

“So you’re a hero now,” he said on a cough, going for something light, something that didn’t feel so dangerous as _she chose me over her prince_. “Why wait for one, when you can be your own, eh?”

“Something like,” Aurora agreed. She lifted her hand, just to her hip, and Hook thought she might have been moving to take his. But it fell back to her side and hung there, limp. Hook wondered at the sense of loss. “The world’s far from healed, it just has more people in it now. There’s still so much to do.”

“And you’ll be doing it?”

She nodded. “My kingdom,” she said. “It’s still largely there, just empty. I’ve been talking to King James and Queen Snow White about clearing it out. Using it.”

“So the princess will be a queen, after all?”

“Queen of virtually nothing,” Aurora countered. “But it’s my kingdom, and I won’t let it waste away.”

“Odd kingdom, yours,” Hook said. It felt like they were getting back on track, in a manner, and he felt much more relaxed. He rocked back on his heels, lifting his good hand to his chin, tapping his fingers against the jut. “Deserts and forests and, as I understand it, and a seaport not far from the castle.”

“There’s a tributary from the sea, yes,” Aurora agreed, her eyes watched him suspiciously. “Why?”

“A queen, in times such as these, is known to take her allies where she can.”

“And a pirate wouldn’t say no to a royal pardon?”

He grinned. He did so enjoy her quick mind. “Something like that.”

She straightened her shoulders, brought herself to her full height—as unimpressive as it was—and sent him a truly regal look down the bridge of her nose. “I shall consider it,” she said.

“Just don’t try to knight me or anything.”

Aurora laughed, her teeth catching her bottom lip. Hook thought it was perhaps the first time he had seen true joy on her face, and her fine, ivory skin all but glowed with it—as if _she_ was infused with the fairy dust she had smashed.

“You really should get back,” Aurora said. “Your bandages.”

“I’m not an invalid.” He waved a dismissive hand when she opened her mouth, protest scarlet on her lips. “I’ll go. No need to badger. Just one more thing.”

“What?” An elegant eyebrow arched, and Hook realized he’d loved to see her, in her element—cool and elegant and commanding. He’d only ever seen her out of her depth, impressive still with her ability to adapt, but still not in a situation she was comfortable with. He wanted to see her on a throne, giving commands, issuing decrees, wearing yards and yards of silk and a crown of spun gold and rare jewels.

“I do seem to recall a certain name being invoked from a princess’s lips,” he said. _Killian_ , and he could have sworn—if he was the romantic sort of man, and he wasn’t—that it was her voice that had entreated him to cling to life just long enough for the magic to bring him back. “And tears. Lovely tears, and quite a thing—to have a princess crying over me.”

Aurora tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Nonsense. Princesses don’t cry over pirates.”

“Ah, it must have been a fever dream, then.” He took a step closer, into the small circle of her personal space. She didn’t back away, and the silk of her dress skimmed like water on the tips of his fingers. “Suppose I kissed you right now?”

She flushed, and he could see it in her eyes, the need to look around and see who was watching them. Princesses and their propriety. Instead, however, she swallowed and muttered, “Suppose you did.”

“Do you think you could shove, feign resistance—just for a moment—before giving in to my undeniable charms?” Hook grinned. “Pirates have reputations to maintain.”

With a laugh, she said, “Certainly not. Mulan would gut you.”

“It’d be worth it, but—very well, I’ll just make due.” He laid his fingers over her slim, slender waist and yanked her against him. She hadn’t expected the mouth and tumbled against him with a gasp. She’d been doing all the line crossing, Hook thought, and it was time he began repaying his debt and do some crossing of his own. Her mouth was warm, and opened eagerly under his, and _she chose him_. Real prince or not, Aurora could very well have hidden that glass ball of fairy dust away, fostered the hope of bringing the dead back to life.

She hadn’t, and he wanted to eat her whole.

Still, he kept the kiss light, nearly chaste—as chaste as a pirate could get, he admitted to himself, as his teeth caught her bottom lip and she moaned. They were still being watched, and Hook was very much a pirate. And pirates didn’t like to share.


End file.
